Summer 1964 was known as the “Freedom Summer.” Americans, Black and white, southern and northern, eager to defend the right of all Americans to vote, planned to register Black people for the upcoming election. Because only 6.7% of Black Mississippians were registered, Mississippi became a focal point. Under Bob Moses, a New York City teacher who began voting work in Mississippi in 1961, volunteers set out. Just as they were getting underway, on June 21, three voting rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, disappeared near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
Ronald Reagan choose to give his first speech after being nominated by the Republicans for president in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi. It was a racist dog whistle about states rights.
The dogs came running to slobber all over Reagan and turn him into an "American Patriot" for:
1. Lying about "fiscal responsibility" but actually leaving the US with 3.1 Trillion dollars of added debt over his 8 years (>5 Trillion in today's dollars), the first Presdent since WW II, at the time, to INCREASE the debt of the USA. (look at any graph). Jimmy Carter had left a "mere" 1.1 Trillion dollar debt having continued to pay down WW II/Vietnam debt like all other Presidents since WW II. Reagan painted Carter as wildly out of control spender on Welfare when, in fact, Carter continued to pay down the US debt during his entire tenure. Reagan sold us lies.
2. Making up a story about a black woman on welfare, in Chicago, who had 15 addresses and was collecting a check at each of those addresses from welfare. This was a lie. However, to Americans it had broad apeal and resonated.
3. Selling the concept that if we CUT TAXES (on corporations, and wealthy individual Americans), Revenue into the US Treasury would go UP. George HW Bush called this concept "Voodoo Economics" for the obvious reason that, 1) it was wrong and 2) it was also a lie. Also, as a grad student, when I started, I paid no taxes on my piddling stipend. Reagan made it so I DID pay taxes. He increased taxes on Grad students. Education is bad in Republican circles!!
4. Increasing military spending to pay off Military Contractors for funding his campaign. Later, Republicans tried to use this irresponsible military spending to claim credit for Gorbachev's brave efforts to release the Soviet Union from its dark days by trying to associate the ridiculously increased military spending with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Reagan was just the ACCIDENTAL President when Gorbachev, an actual visionary leader, took the wall down and opened the Soviet Union. But, smile and take credit Reagan could do!! That (claiming credit for something one had/has nothing to do with) is one of the aspects of white culture I find most reprehensible after 38 years in America's corporations.
Reagan. A disaster for America in a blundering smile, cloaked by evil lies, hiding behind a faint intelligence.
But, Americans lapped up those lies like kittens lap up sweet, warm milk. Yes indeed. We did.
It was Reagan's election that was my awakening to who I was really sharing a country with. I had just started college and I could not believe that anyone would vote for an actor in the role of president although the bartender in the college bar where I waited tables told me she was going to vote for him because he had once given her a good tip. I thought of her as an airhead and could not believe that most people would vote for him. Later on, I noticed former classmates, including Black ones who had gone to Ivy League universities, bragging about voting for him, and I was shocked. I thought, well, these were the jocks from my elite independent school. They all went on to become stockbrokers and make a lot of money and considered themselves the smart players of the Reagan 80s. Later on they would go to fund Obama's campaign and pretend they had never been Reaganites and embraced Reaganomics. When Reagan won I renewed my German passport and made sure that I had an escape plan. However, little did I know at the time that under Reagan scientists brought evidence to the fossil fuel industry that global warming was happening and brought it to politicians as well. According to the book, Losing Earth: A Recent History by Nathaniel Rich, it was Reagan who decided to ignore the evidence, even though the fossil fuel industry was listening to scientists and ready to invest in alternative sources of fuel. Reagan came on board and told them, no you don't need to do that because I am going to put an insider in charge of the industry and then we can let someone in the future solve the problems. Perhaps he really did believe someone would come up with a way to solve the problem, perhaps he did not care. I tend to think he was just not mentally fit enough to understand the problem and was surrounded by corrupt advisors. We can see how well that is working. Our planet is one big climate disaster at this point, and it is hitting some harder than others. There are many ways to see Putin's war on Ukraine as an offshoot of global warming because there is a fight for increasingly scarce resources and Ukraine is blessed with plenty for the new green future, as well as those that everyone needs now, like grain, location by the sea with the harvest and shipping. Luckily, in Ukraine their actor president was a lawyer before and he is a sharp thinker. He sees the value of the area that Russia is trying to take.
Unfortunately for the planet Reagan was voted in by a lot of Democrats who turned Republican, eager for making money not by hard work but by becoming investment mangers and through the stock markets. "The American dream!" One thing that struck me about Reagan is that he was a leader that told Americans that they no longer had to have the manners they had been raised with where they would consider others, it was okay to brag and say, ME! ME! ME! That was the big psychological switch that I noticed that made him so popular. He was the guru of being self serving. The culture changed. Everyone was allowed to be selfish. Then came Donald Trump. He added another big cultural switch. This one was called everyone can be an open racist jerk! That was a new enlightenment to people. These are two big cultural shifts I have observed and one said, I your leader permit you to be selfish, and the next is I permit you not to be PC. This has made all the grumblers happy. The people who are too inconvenienced to consider others feelings, or other's cultures or place in society. If Reagan had not primed people to be selfish maybe they would not have so easily made the shift to Trump's out and out it is okay to have bad behavior. In any case, Reagan made a shift that many people were duped into following because it allowed them to do what they wanted and not consider others. Now we have gotten more of that with Trump, and it is hard to put the Genie back into the bottle. Biden hoped that if he could get his bill passed and let Americans see that there is a role for government and if they lived under a well run country which anyone under 60 probably doesn't even have an inkling of what government can be doing for a country in an experiential kind of way unless they immigrated her from elsewhere, because Reagan so thoroughly destroyed government taking care of people. People who lack imagination need to experience personally, they cannot just be told how it will be. It seems Biden understood that and so do all of the Republicans that are trying to thwart him. So, we are in a pretty pickle now.
Biden had the right idea: that government should indeed take care of people, but he never quite accepted that the people on the other side of the aisle are no longer like the ones he knew and worked with and compromised with when he was in the Senate. They are unrepentant Trumpists or, like McConnell, simply self-interested, with no concern that their actions are hurting or killing people. These senators are encouraging their constituents, by their awful example, to be ugly and uncaring. The pickle we are in is not at all pretty.
Compare Reagan's quips about "government" with the word of one of the founders of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln:
"The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities."
And in a government of, by, and for the people, we do it for each other, in concert, in a variety of ways. Reagan's and the modern GOP's "small government" was always a Trojan Horse for "anti-democracy" and feudalism-lite in its stead. "GOP" "small government" is selective; small for some, robust for others. Bankrupted bankers got Big help in Subprime Crisis, but aiding financially impacted ordinary folks was "moral hazard". The rich and powerful enjoyed waves of tax cuts and responsibility lifting "deregulation", while police where militarized, and responded with an increasingly heavy hand with those already most deprived.
Yet to this day, Reagan retains a media-fabricated "nice guy" image, even among some liberals, and even many Democrats, at least passively, support some form of "Reaganomic" prescriptions.
J L, I will never forgive Obama for not going after the banks that caused the crash. Their getting away with their malfeasance gave others the excuse to act similarly (just like not penalizing the Republicans who ignored subpoenas during the two impeachment trials gives those subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 Committee a similar get-out-of-jail-free card).
And I'm worried that if Merrick Garland doesn't indict Trump soon, Trump will declare his candidacy and use that as an excuse to be ineligible for indictment.
Linda, I wholeheartedly agree with what you said. I turned 18 in 1972 and voted in my first presidential election for George McGovern. I proudly voted for President Carter in 1976 and 1980. I was shocked at all the people around me that voted for Reagan in 1980. Many were relatives from the WWII generation that had voted for FDR, Truman, Ike, Jack, LBJ's vision of a Great Society, and would have voted for Bobby too. How dare they vote for Reagan. I still don't understand it to this day. You are spot on about the permission Reagan gave to people to turn their backs on the New Deal and Civil Rights. Now Trump and the permission to be a racist, uncivil, and to be unpatriotic. Tomorrow on July 4, the MAGA clan dishonors all the Americans that have come before them to fight for the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. I fear that most of them have never even read the Declaration of Independence. I very much miss Bobby Kennedy today.
The very good who were assassinated in the 1960s....I often wonder where we would be today if MLK and RFK were still alive...for that matter, how history was altered by Lincoln's assasination at such a pivotal time.
I was so upset by those three assassinations that I and my young family expatriated for awhile. It was unbelievable. It still frightens me, that no matter the visible goodness, there is treachery behind the scenes. Today is no exception.
Treachery is an abiding feature of human nature. I think we are wise to always be aware or it, to attempt to inhibit and manage it, and not to let it obscure what can be cherished, where and when that is possible. According to Victor Frankel, even in extreme circumstances.
I bemoan that lack of a civics education for so many of our young. I believe strongly in the importance of taking personal responsibility for one’s own education and no longer relying solely on either a public or private education system to deliver that education essential to understanding the world and the breadth of its horizons. I do believe strongly in the benefits of and support a strong and healthy public education system but see it as the cornerstone of a sound education not the completed structure. The task of building upon that
cornerstone is a lifelong task always available to be augmented and strengthened.
While our initial minds are not quite William James' "blank slate", our kit is pretty much all learned. Education provide the tools we need for a successful and responsible life, of which a profession is a key but far from the sole component. we cannot change the nature of reality, but by knowing how it works, we can ride it, too degrees, we can even influence what happens next, in pleasing ways, provided we know the rules.
As parents, my wife and I tried to educate our daughter to hit the ground running, equipped to go where she would like on her own two feet. I imagine formal education doing much the same, imparting information, but above all jump-starting or refining self-sustaining and self-revising skills that improve our life and "liberty and justice for all". Fortune favors the prepared mind.
I wonder if it had to do with his sterling image as host of the GE sponsored Sunday night TV? All America watched the good program after Sunday family dinners.
" I tend to think he was just not mentally fit enough to understand the problem and he was surrounded by corrupt advisors." BINGO! I think that is a key modus operandi of the Republican party. They choose a showman, a popular figure to be president, then pull strings behind him. Although George HW Bush seemed to try to be fair, just look at little Bush, Trump et al. They were and are among the least brightest men at the helm. Each had cabinets that just did awful things. Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's shortly after his term ended.
Oh, don't forget Eleanor Roosevelt. She was the person who convinced FDR of policy many times. She was an avid social activist and humanitarian, while he was a good ol' boy and a ladies' man. But, she made him see the liberal light, (and sometimes she leveraged his unfaithfulness!)
I vaguely recall an article in the NYT during Reagan's presidency titled "What the President Didn't Know, and When He Didn't know it" detailing some fairly disturbing examples of Reagan being pretty out of it, but no one seemed to care, and his faux-folksy persona seemed to cover a multitude of deficits.
I am often asked by fellow Progressive activists why it is that the clear evidence revealed in the January 6 Committee investigation has failed to separate Trump supporters from him. Why do they persist in supporting a politician who is so clearly corrupt and malevolent?
I believe it is because his supporters covet similar power over others. They feel that they have lost influence and control as society has become more diverse and groups who formerly had little power have found an agency and increased influence. Trump's supporters and those of Trump-like Republicans are not at all in favor of the equality of all. Rather they desire a world in which there are “real Americans” and “the others.” Trump supporters wish to hold the power to decide who is in which of those groups and empower the “real Americans” with the ability to govern, to decide right and wrong, whose votes should count and whose should not, what children should be taught in public schools, what books should be available in libraries, who can marry or not, and what faiths are acceptable or not. It is all about power for oneself over the agency of others. It is not simply about admiring or support of him, they truly wish to hold the same type of power over others they see Trump desires or holds.
The biggest danger of Trump is that his narcissism is highly contagious and he is patient zero of a narcissism pandemic.
Brilliantly said, Bruce. Contagious narcissism and I would add contagious cynicism, too. So jarring that people calling themselves Christian are among the worst affected, the words of Jesus not a being a big influence on them.
Keep in mind there are plenty of progressive Christians and people of faith who are actively engaged in justice work but the media ignores us and finds us boring:)
They are the descendants of the confederacy. They have never recovered from the loss of position. It used to be enough, and still is in some parts, to merely be white male.
So powerful, and so true: "One thing that struck me about Reagan is that he was a leader that told Americans that they no longer had to have the manners they had been raised with where they would consider others, it was okay to brag and say, ME! ME! ME! That was the big psychological switch that I noticed that made him so popular. He was the guru of being self serving. The culture changed. Everyone was allowed to be selfish. "
Yes, it was a turning point towards me vs we. As Candidate Reagan replied, "there he goes again" towards President Carter's clarion calls for conservation, he cast caution to the wind.
I briefly encountered Ronnie as an Undergraduate at UCLA at a Regent`s Meeting that was declared an "Illegal Assemby" & the curtain pulled back to a thick Glass Wall revealing a '60's Tableau of students being battered back with Police Batons. Reagan? Ronnie was acting non-plussed waiting for the Director to yell, "Cut" - that's a Print.
Odd to contemplate given Nixon's irresponsibility in other areas, but Nixon was forward-looking and protective of the environment. Protection of the global environment as antithetical to the official Republican notion of "freedom" began with Reagan.
Yes and folks tend to BLAME US BOOMERS, yet it was the conservatives who were self centered, and many of us rejected those values in favor of justice and peace. Why we were accused of being spoiled and self centered never made any sense, we boomers have always been a divided generation, over civil rights, justice for women and war (Vietnam) et al. So stop blaming us. It was the other part of our generation that messed things up the Gingriches and his gang of cronies. Lindsey Graham etc.
Generational blaming is not very useful since ultimately a society is a whole, as in the end, is our species; and there is always a need for nuance. The bigger issue is the degree to which our society always has, and since Reagan even more so, pandered to the agendas of those with money. The young are not wrong that they are getting the short end of the stick, especially as living wages, and worker protections ebb, college graduation is both more demanded for decent paying jobs, and the price become more personally burdensome, and the planet burns while so many old folks fiddle.
Warnings of the dangers of CO2 pollution have been sounded for decades. Both Nixon and Carter advocated care of the environment; but enough Americans turned our backs, and each of our impacts accumulate to the point, that the future is not looking good.
I don't think narcissism has much to do with love, but I suppose that what you love is what you care about, so yeah. Narcissism is good for profit, and a nation that reveres profit uber alles abandons the urge for a civilized society. Trump personifies malignant narcissism, and that is what he and his party now sell.
The troublesome secret of a just and democratic society is its need of discipline and effort. Of liberty is that for the word to have meaning outside the realm of a hermit, we must maintain it together. Liberty and Justice for all means respecting your identical rights; no rape, no polluting the well. Liberty means nothing without diversity (no?) and diversity means inevitable conflicts in good faith. Who get to drive across the intersection first? We have to agree to a common good.
But that's work.; sometimes emotional work, often mental and physical. And seemingly easier solutions are always an easy sell. "Just be selfish" has a certain appeal. "Greed is Good" was a line in a cautionary movie, but Republicans picked it up.
In Greedland, "The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits." You are never to blame, and every problem is somebody else's fault. Trump personifies it, and his party enables him.
You have nailed it about the cultural shift towards self- centeredness. But it began earlier than RR. On campus of U. Of Maryland 1967 there was an “Objectivist” group devoted to worship of Ayn Rand, who pushed “the virtue of selfishness.”
I have a sister and brother-in-law that attended Stanford in the early '80s and worshipped at the altar of Ayn Rand. So many in Silicon Valley were spawned in this culture.
There are no children in her created worlds. Plenty of sex. Her family’s pharmacy business was taken by the state when she was a teen. She had sisters in Russia she never connected with again after she left.
Oh wasn't that awful? "Atlas Shrugged" was the book of the day on college campuses. And then little Paul Ryan wanted it to be a model for our nation...and white male supremacy.
Hope Ah, Paul Ryan. Who remembers this brief flash in a pan with great abs (which he displayed) and the kookiest budget proposals since Reags]an’s ‘trickle down’ tax cuts. His brief reign as Hpuse Speaker was almost as disastrous of that of Newt Gingrich. Ryan did require his staff to read Atlas Shrugged. AWWWk. Now we speak of Ryan shrugged.
It was bad enough when Reagan was governor of California and decimated mental health care and public assistance for our most vulnerable people. Thus the beginning of the homeless crisis in our state. His focus was on getting people to question our government in favor of corporate rule by lying and conflating fact with fiction.
Linda, this is a very small cavil, yet I feel bound to make it.
Around the time that Reagan became President, I noticed a sharp switch in motivation among politicians and officials I saw working in Europe. Hitherto, the guiding attitude had been one of "What's in it for US?" In a short space of time, this was replaced by "What's in it for ME?" ME... ME... ME... ME...
Part of this I attribute to the passing of the generation that had fought and suffered in the Second World War, men and women determined to build a better world for posterity. Many in my own generation, born into the war and the struggling period of postwar reconstruction, now wanted a slice of the cake... for themselves. Many relinquished their loudly proclaimed social principles overnight, espousing the new "truths" of Reaganomics, etc. Much turning of coats.
So, yes, Reagan made a fine figurehead for "the clever hopes" of another "low dishonest decade" but it's his paymasters and our society that enabled the damage.
With Donald D.T. we move from the stereotyped puppetry of the period's soap operas through the looking glass into "virtual reality", a world of pure video game projections. Flickering appearances with nothing whatever behind them.
Mass psychosis guaranteed.
There's reason to fear that the cure may be a very hard one.
I am about the same age as you are... My first Presidential election was in 1980, and I totally agree with your analysis! My shock was when some professed Christians told me they were voting for Reagan, "because he is a Christian ". The mess we are in now has certainly been brewing for a long time.
So Jimmy Carter’s faith did not count as Christian? He told us to put on sweaters and turn down the thermostat, that was unforgivable. What’s more suspicious was that Jimmy was much better educated, also a strike against him.
I remember when Reagan announced his run for governor. Hope my dates are right. I was shocked that a candidate, an actor, who had no government experience or qualifications could run. And so naive even with high school and college history and civics. I grew up in a family of forever Democrats who were first generation Americans and my father was a veteran of WW2. They loved FDR. And voted for Stevenson. I wasn’t old enough to vote until the presidential election of 1972, after ratification of the 26th Amendment that lowered the voting age to 18. We had a McGovern sign on our lawn and no one destroyed it. We just debated on our front lawns, patios and driveways. Reagan: a rookie for California governor. And Nixon for president again in ‘72. A landslide. A crook. And with Reagan’s experience of dismantling the social services of our state, he was elected president in 1981. Of course a repub. Welcome to reality and life as an activist for social Justice, peace and anti racism. And the environment. Not ever ever ever a repug.
And we Californians should have known better. After former actor and song-and-dance man George Murphy's dismal stint as U.S. Senator, we thought Reagan would also be a flash in the pan. Boy, were we wrong.
Boy, did you nail us, but Reagan also had the propaganda master and the dirty tricks crew that demonized any program as socialism. And the masses of asses couldn’t wait to get to the trough. Sadly, the late 80’s should have told the fools that the rich had already gobbled up any largesse…
Never forget Frank or Grover Norquist. Both aided and abetted the worst evil this country has ever seen. Love your “master of twisted semantics.” Fits like skin
Reagan, an actor in the white house. Can't help but see the comparison to Trump, basically a personality puppet created to do the bidding of these extreme so called republicans. The problem is even the puppeteers could not control his power hungry sociopathic ways. Trump's rise to office really was orchestrated in the same way as Reagan's. Interesting and scary.
OMG Ted Cruz, true, but boy I worry about them electing his ass. He may be crazy and self serving but he's smart and knows how to work his base. I'm still hoping Cruz and all those wackos are indicted for something and put out of office for good.
In Reagan’s case, he became quite the political careerist, albeit also a puppet for many years of conservatives; early on he had some leftward-centrist orientation, then changed. Reagan had two 4-year terms elected (R) as Governor of California (1966, then again 1970), and survived a recall petition. He failed in bids for Republican presidential primaries in 1968 (Nixon) and 1976 (Ford).
As opposed to TFG, a libertine doofus who probably could have cared less about politics or parties until he smelled blood of discontent in the water. In a way, TFG punked those establishment powers who put Reagan into power, when he thumbed his nose at the Rep. establishment after the 2016 R. primaries - wiped that whole stage off the map. Those never-T folks are still either wondering what hit them, or, studied the moves to refine them for 2022+2024 - a chilling prospect.
It doesn't help for people to talk about him being old. Joe is very smart and we could move ahead....if it wasn't for what Trump did while he was at the helm and now the Republicans that blame Joe for breathing!
Linda, Good roadmap with stops for repub presidents, one by one, (generally, maybe not all repubs but …) destroying possibilities to save this country, socially (human rights, civil rights, women’s rights) Voting rights, Gun safety Laws and economically and environmentally, the planet and the courts. A lot of damage credited to a political party voted in by the people in fair elections. I’m sure there will be arguments against my blaming one party but look at the facts of each administration. Responsibility.
200% true. He had great scripts from Peggy Noonan (who is still spewing lies) and great PR by Michael Deaver who wrapped him in a flag at a photo op a day. He was a better actor than I ever gave him credit for. I thought it was significant that Patty and Ron didn’t support him. “Reagan Democrats” were the traitors to me.
A few news people, so I heard. Walter was gone and Rupert was in his ascendancy. As Jack Kemp said at a dinner in Jan 1981, honoring Rupert for his help for RR “Rupert Murdoch used the editorial page, the front page, and every other page Necessary to elect Ronald Reagan President.”
And Jon, next up is likely DeSantis - who will also "do evil effectively"! So whoever the Dems nominate? There better not be the same whining & refusal to vote from followers of candidates who DONT make the cut. They sure did a lot to accomplish Trump's ""win"". I have to wonder did any of those ever admit to themselves exactly how much they assisted the Repubs?
Yes, I have loathed St Ray Gun since he came on the scene. I also blame him for ruining mental health and low income housing help....part of the problem now with homelessness. Then there was the union busting, all this in addition to what you have cited in your excellent post.
And don't forget all the "little wars" in Central America, trying to snuff out "Communism", which led to today's chaos and emigration in those countries.
Add to that his earlier "accomplishment" of pointing the finger at purported communists when he was head of the Screen Actors Guild in Hollywood, and ruining careers and lives by doing so. Mr. Nice Guy - NOT!
Wow. Credit due, and a global megaphone to you Mike!! I never knew the facts, but I could smell it a mile away. Thank you for sharing what you know - good health and long life to you ...!!
Reagan and Gingrich. Plus sadly John Anderson was the spoiler in 1980 with too many foolish people annoyed with Jimmy Carter and voted for the so called Independent Repubican (I lived in that district in Illinois as a kid and now Adam Kitzginer carries on the tradtion of a moderate. sensible Repubican. ) Remidn folsk we got Reagan as our college aged kids cast theri first anieve vote agains JimmyCarter, the finests former President we ever had.
I voted for Anderson, the "independent" republican. He was actually quite thoughtful about issues, particularly energy, which was big back then. And I heard something to the effect that he had a lot more support than was being conveyed to voters. But from the benefit of 40-plus years of hindsight, I should have voted for Carter.
But this is one of the areas where ranked choice voting would do a huge amount of good. People could vote for the Andersons and Jill Steins and Naders as their first choices, and the Democratic candidate even as their last choice, and the Dem would still win.
Carter was fiscally responsible, did not start or fake the US into any stupid wars, began trying to get Americans on board for a future without oil by embracing solar and wind energy, and he role modeled good grace.
IF that is mediocre, I will take it all day long compared to any President since Carter.
Yes, we bought the snakeoil, and the media that had formerly rode herd on Nixon just couldn't help loving telegenic Reagan, "The Great Communicator". A year after his death, 2.4 million Americans in the poll, organized by the Discovery Channel and AOL declared Former US President Ronald Reagan has been voted the "greatest American" of all time, edging out Lincoln. An insight into the man behind the image was released in 2019 of then Governor Reagan speaking in 1971 to then President Nixon about the Tanzanian delegation to the UN:
“ 'To watch that thing on television, as I did, to see those, those monkeys from those African countries – damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!' Reagan tells Nixon, who erupts in laughter."
JL. Excellent post into Reagan's true character, which, was also displayed through the lie about the black woman in Chicago with 15 addresses collecting welfare.
Sadly, Reagans open racism is exactly why Americans loved him.
And yet they lap! Republicans and so many others continue to worship the man. My staunch Democrat all his life father voted for him. An actor whose career in Hollywood was over, who pitched Boraxo on television was now the most powerful man in the world. What a cruel joke. And later came Trump??
Reagan's first Attack position was as President of the Screen Actor's Guild 1947-1952 ( don't
ask ). And, from there to a corporate Spokesperson ( pseudo-Westener ) for General Electric from tony Pacific Palisades with a "Reagan Ranch" with a view above Malibu Lake now a CA State Park near a huge "Blue Sky movie Backdrop" that caught my eye as a child - always a fake blue sky backdrop with Ronnie.
That was Reagan's symbolic promise to the nation. Forget that wimpy, honest man of peace you've suffered through for four years. Besides - he thinks too much.you know. He does that "pondering" thing before making important decisions. We Republicans don't do that
I will give "real" Americans back their power. God, Guns, and spilling the guts of the "other."
Sound familiar? Even those who have figured out Bulshitter 2.0 still worship Bulshitter 1.0.
And the "Miracle on Ice," with the goalie wearing the American flag afterward like a robe, showed how America would return to greatness. With the election of Ronald Reagan.
Pretty low standard for a miracle. Couldn't have anything to do with the strategy employed by Coach Herb Brooks. That whole story is worth a post itself.
Rarely has one event more strongly signified the truth than this1980 campaign starter. It set in motion a series of lies that make the one Trump perpetuates pale by comparison.
Americans, Black and white, southern and northern, eager to defend the right of all
What’s new?
Americans to vote, planned to register Black people for the upcoming election. Because only 6.7% of Black Mississippians were registered, Mississippi became a focal point. Under Bob Moses, a New York City teacher who began voting work in Mississippi in 1961, volunteers set out. Just as they were getting underway, on June 21, three voting rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, disappeared near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
What’s new in Mississippi? Alabama? Florida? Georgia? Tennesse? Kentucky?
The United States Republican Party? Our senate? Our Supreme Court? The Philippines? Russia? China? India? Egypt? Algeria? Saudi Arabia? Turkey? Hungary?
The human race?
Our gene needs development: brain surgery?
No!
Love thy neighbor. It’s simple.
To Tolerance....
“What are the significant differences among people?”
An essay topic - awarded to two rising juniors annually, they walk in to the college of their choice.
Study the annual winners of
The Eunice Helmkamp Maguire Award at U-High, The Laboratory School, The University of Chicago...
LBJ said “those who founded our country knew that freedom would be secure only if each generation fought to renew and enlarge its meaning..." Six 'Originalist' SCOTUS Justices disagree.
Yes, Bradley, they disagree, but their rampage must be stopped! Surely, there must be a way — after all, as Johnson goes on to say:
“… Americans of every race and color have died in battle to protect our freedom. Americans of every race and color have worked to build a nation of widening opportunities. Now our generation of Americans has been called on to continue the unending search for justice within our own borders.”
Yes. I couldn’t remember how it went. Ramona Boston got me squared away. I read that( Revelations ) 53 yrs ago 9 months PG.Scared me then, and our future scares me now. Not in 53 yrs have I feared the Supreme Court or Repubs like I I’m feeling now. I want this to be a bad dream and just wake up from it.
And in the meantime we have added so called “Jefferson State” and much of the Mid West to the equation. Why? Certainly Racism is at the top of the list along with “over regulation” by the government. In play are basic civil rights for all of us. Has anyone here ever been miffed by a sometimes seemingly ridiculous permitting process by their local government? There is usually a perfectly good reason for that tiresome and costly process. However the ordinary citizen interprets it as government over reach. At that point it is easy for the GOP to convince voters “the government is the problem.” At this point we must now all take a deep breath, choose our words carefully and keep in mind the consequences of our word and our deeds. We must also let our local governments know that their actions have far greater consequences that go way beyond our local area.
Just an fyi about racism in the south and the west and the north.
I have lived in the South, the West (for a couple of summers) and in upstate NY at various points in my own migration since I left my Texas farm in 1978.
THE MOST RACIST and SEGREGATED place I have ever resided at was, at the time, in the upstate NY area. In those towns like Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, segregation remains, today, fully in place and rigorously supported by the white community through radio station propaganda, parental upbringing, segregated schools etc.
Whites go to school in the suburbs. Blacks in the inner city. Period.
When I was 6 years old my school, in rural East Texas de-segregated. 1966.
But, in upstate NY schools TODAY?? Schools remain fully segregated. Period.
So, the most racist places in America are in the NORTH AND MISISSIPPI. We do not need to hide from this. We need to realize this fundamental aspect of America. Trump did not just get votes in the south and west. He won many of the white suburbs in the NORTH.
It is simply NOT the case that because Abe Lincoln ably conscripted a bunch of white northernern young men who, mostly, had never even seen a black man, in order to fight the civil war, that white people in the north are not racist. Not even close to true.
Mike, you get the Truth Teller Award of the year - and all time, in my book - thank you for saying out loud what so many have swallowed whole, and now are so stricken with soul constipation, they have no idea what, or how to say!!
So true, Mike. I’ve lived in NYS for over 35 years, but when I was canvassing this year with a black colleague and she said she would not go to certain houses alone I couldn’t blame her. 45 miles north of NYC. The racism even here is stunning.
Absolutely true. I grew up in northern Indiana in Elkhart. The county seat, Goshen, which prided itself on its Christianity, would not allow blacks to stay over night and I think the same was true in Salem, Oregon, where I live now. Black people then lived in a thin line south of the railroad in Elkhart and that's the only place they were found in Elkhart County. I saw my first racism incident in Chicago when I was about 7 or so, but had no idea that black people lived in Elkhart. I had no black classmates, and then only a few, until I reached high school. I had a friend from southern Indiana (Bedford) tell me that the racism was so thick there, that you could cut it with a knife. Both sides of my family were racist and more since they disliked anyone who wasn't exactly like them. I heard plenty of racist remarks and other biases growing up. I still hear them from time to time. We have a black owned restaurant in downtown Salem and the owners have BLM signs and also a library inside. Of course, they have been the target of local wing nut cases. They are moving shortly into a larger space, so they do have lots of support and interesting good food as well. And a side note about why I hate the 4th...someone fairly close by popped off a couple firecrackers at around 5:30 am this morning.
Medford, Oregon (my home town) was one of the last cities to stop enforcement of the Sundown Laws. Eugene, Oregon (my current place of residence for the last 38 years) had an interesting situation in the past 15 years or so. There was a "Reynolds" St. in one of the subdivisions that grew up after WWII. Out on the west edge of town (south of where this subdivision is) there was a Black community, and a Christian Methodist Episcopal Church built by local families. Sam Reynolds was the pastor there. Upon his retirement, the congregation petitioned the city to name the street "Sam Reynolds Street." The city refused, allowing the name "Sam R." St. because it would be "too confusing" to have streets with such similar names. It wasn't until 2018 that the street was named "Sam Reynolds St."
Sidebar #1: there was an arson fire there in November, 2021; no suspects or arrests to date.
Sidebar #2: Quentin Reynolds is the pastor for the other predominantly Black church in town, Bethel Temple Church. This building was built in the past 15 years, also in west Eugene, replacing a smaller church in unincorporated Glenwood, which is a curious area between the cities of Eugene and Springfield that neither city particularly wanted until the past 5 years or so. Quentin is Sam Reynolds' son.
I am interested to read your analysis, Mike. I recently moved to the Rochester, NY area. Your observations go far in explaining my disappointment in the lack of progressive action among citizens here. Effort to address is what occupies my thoughts now.
All I know about Rochester NY is that some brave women challenged in court the almost universal law about women having to cover their breasts in public and won on the grounds of equal rights. Yep, women bold enuf can legally go top free in New York the same as men.
You are right, of course. The North is no exception. NY state is like so many states. Its urban areas vote liberal usually and are the most populated, so the states seem to carry those values. But the towns and rural districts of our states are more than full of segregationist concepts. In some cases they may be more entrenched than the South. And then there is Elise Stefanik!! Aaargh.
Oregon would like a seat at that New York racist table, but I guess we are, after all, in the west, which does have its racist heritage very well established and in many places intact.
Mike, you're totally correct. A good friend, who grew up in upstate NY but has lived in Georgia for years, is constantly badgered by her cousins who live there with the worst right wing hate mail, although they know that she's a Democrat, and not a racist. I grew up in suburban Boston, and although I've lived in suburban Atlanta for over 50 years, many people I knew as a child have revealed themselves as shameless racists. I've ended these relationships because of their disgusting views. There's plenty of racism to go around in this country, but the North needn't point fingers at the South, since they have done little to remediate their own shameful filth.
Take a look at the facts folks, Following is the data that backs up Mike's assertion that '...in upstate NY schools TODAY?? Schools remain fully segregated. Period.'
'Report Shows School Segregation in New York Remains Worst in Nation'
Date Published: June 10, 2021
'A new report from the Civil Rights Project finds that New York retains its place as the most segregated state for black students, and second most segregated for Latino students, trailing only California. The report also makes clear that New York is experiencing an acceleration of demographic changes outlined in the earlier 2014 report. White students are no longer the state’s majority group as they were in 2010. the proportion of Asian students increasing sharply to more than 17% in 2018, and Latino students becoming the largest racial/ethnic group, from 35% in 1990 to 41% in 2018. Conversely, there has been a significant decline in the black student population. The new research also examines the expansion of school choice and charter schools and how they may have contributed to the continued segregation of the city’s schools. The research underscores that many in New York City are engaged in important efforts to integrate schools and there are a significant number of schools showing signs of reduced segregation.'
'A new study of school segregation shows public school districts across the Syracuse metro area are the 13th most segregated by race in the country. The Century Foundation just published new data showing the Syracuse area just behind Chicago-Evanston, Illinois and just ahead of Flint, Michigan. Newark, New Jersey and Gary, Indiana lead the list for most segregated when comparing White to Black students.'
'The study compares 200 schools that educate more than 100,000 students across Onondaga, Oswego and Madison Counties. 93.7% of the segregation is seen when comparing public school districts to each other. The highest measurement of this Segregation Index comes when a school has either all White or all Black students.'
'The Rochester area ranks 8th. The Albany-Schenectady metro area ranks 22nd in segregation between public school districts nationally.
We have previously reported on the segregation of schools in Syracuse and Onondaga County in our series of reports on The Map. "Syracuse is like many other cities in the northeast that have maintained segregation by housing, by ethnicity as we see the growth of suburbs that have become whiter and more distant from the city," explained Dr. George Theoharis of Syracuse University. "Syracuse is more segregated than it was because of issues of white flight and economic disparity. "
'Our reporting on The Map highlights the racial makeup and failing performance of Dr. Martin Luther King School in Syracuse. Attending the Dr. King school today, 121 Black students, eleven Hispanic, one Native-American, six multi-racial and one white child. Statewide, the average performance for elementary schools on English Language Arts tests for 3rd and 4th grades in 52% proficient. At Dr. King school, the ELA proficiency is 3%. Only 3 of 121 Black students scored proficient on the test, according to the most recent state data. For more than a decade, New York State labeled Dr. George Theoharis of Syracuse University. "Syracuse is more segregated than it was because of issues of white flight and economic disparity. "
Agree. Attitudes and hate are owned by mankind and carried out in like lyrics accompanied with regional and local melodies. Or, in different languages and imbedded in culture and our traditions. The hope of our grand experiment is to alter attitudes and lyrics, not the distinctive melodies, cultures, or traditions. Sadly, I'm not sure the racism of my childhood neighborhood in NW Chicago is much different now, except for which nationalities are direct and indirect objects of the attitudes.
The racial incident I referred to at age seven was in Chicago, but further south. A black family was trying to move into a neighborhood. Much later on I did my Peace Corps training in south Chicago at George Williams College under the auspices of Roosevelt University in the middle sixties. That was quite an adventure. I did some student teaching at Wendall Phillips High School during that time. Some somewhat scary happenings, but the one that makes me smile is this one. We had the students on a field trip to the Field Museum. There were some Amish nearby and one of the students observed to me: "Look, Pilgrims".
Applies to many, many small towns as well, where nepotism is just a business model. Just follow the map of the race riots, goes right through the Midwest.
I guessed easily what a deep breat was - but look at those three dots after "Collapse" - click on them and it will say "edit". You can go in and fix whatever needs fixing, even hours later, then save. That's only on your own post, of course, you can't alter anything posted by someone else!
I never knew that until recently . At the same time white men who were allowed to Vote, lots of them signed with an X.So many couldn’t read or write. Not even their own name.
Fast forward to July 1, 2022 in the 5-way House Primary in Wyoming, the Election Denier leads by 30 points; Liz Cheney tells the voters:"The truth matters".
I think both are true; in the immediate case (and as articulated by LBJ), easily 3 generations as the 4th comes to voting age. In practice, over four centuries, especially when you fold in the second edge of the sword that created America as a dominant country in a short amount of time, that of Indigenous Genocide as it coupled with Black enslavement.
I’ve lived. In the South for 63 yrs. It’s still as Racist and has been as it was in 64 .Recently I called about a service I needed. The guy came to review my needs. He then asked if I minded a Black person coming to my house. I did not go with that service. No I don’t mind but I could not believe he asked !
What the service was actually doing was protecting the Black worker. I was asked that question in 2012 when my 88 year old father needed help from caregivers. Knowing him as I did I told the service that we were not going to put someone in a position to be disrespected. My mother was a totally different story.
I was not raised (in NC) to hate blacks, but the ‘superior attitude’ crept in through the cracks and crannies. I played with the young child of the black woman who helped my mama with washing and other chores since she worked her whole adult life in hosiery mills, while tending to her eight children. I didn’t go to school or church with Rosalee, so segregation was alive and well. But my parents respect for Rosie and her hard life must have rubbed off on me at a very young age. BTW, in the assisted living facility where I live, I am witness to a couple of arrogant residents disrespecting the aides and techs on occasion. Racism is often proud, and at the same time, denied. Quite a feat…
Maybe ? But I have had times before that and he was the first ever to ask.All I care about is their skills and a Criminal Background check no matter who you send. I was raised up North.
TC LBJ, a southerner who became a lukewarm proponent of civil rights in pushing for a moderate civil rights bill under President Ike in 1957, became the most important civil rights president in history (doubling down on Lincoln’s emancipation) in 1964/65.
This former ‘master of the Senate’ took a n unprecedented 66-day Senate filibuster before moving the civil rights bill onward. With this and the 1965 civil rights bill [which have been weakened by recent Supreme Courts] LBJ was a remarkable civil rights hero, while reflecting that this would cost the Democrats the South for a generation.
In fact, racism is a major plank in the current Trump world that is swathed in right-kind-of-whitism.
Keith we were told when Kennedy was killed that the Warren Report would be unsealed in 50 yrs. To date it has not. We have gotten a ‘ Nugget ‘ or 2 in all these yrs past. Why won’t they unseal it ? It will be 60 yrs next yr
Yes, we got the Public Report. But they stated at the time that basically not all could be revealed and at the 50yr mark what was NOT for Public to know would be.It’s sealed under lock and key. George HW Bush was the director of the CIA at the time.
Thank you Bradley for reminding us of LBJ and the Civil Rights Law of 1964, which was at the center of today's Letter.
Here we are a day before, July 4th, 2022, the day known as Independence Day. It will be the country’s 246 birthday. Today’s Letter reminds us of the Summer 1964, known as ‘Freedom Summer’.
‘Americans, Black and white, southern, and northern, eager to defend the right of all Americans to vote, planned to register Black people for the upcoming election. Because only 6.7% of Black Mississippians were registered, Mississippi became a focal point.’ (Letter)
‘Freedom Summer” that was 58 years ago. ‘The House of Representatives had been considering a civil rights bill since June 1963 …’ ‘The House passed the bill on February 10 and sent it on to the Senate, where everyone knew the southern segregationists would not give up easily.’
‘The head of the southern bloc, Richard Russell (D-GA), said: “We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our states.” (Letter) What’s easy…certainly not passing a civil right bill in the United States America. BUT, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on July 2. THAT WAS 58 YEARS AGO!
‘…a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex,[a] and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination. The act "remains one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history". (Wikipedia)
'Here we are a day before, July 4th, 2022, the day known as Independence Day.
‘This year, state lawmakers, who spent 2021 passing laws that made it harder to vote, have focused more intently on election interference, passing nine laws that could lead to tampering with how elections are run and how results are determined.’
‘Election interference laws do two primary things. They open the door to partisan interference in elections, or they threaten the people and processes that make elections work. In many cases, these efforts are being justified as measures to combat baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and a stolen 2020 election.’
‘Between January 1 and May 4, six state legislatures — Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma — have passed nine election interference laws. As of May 4, at least 17 such bills introduced this year are still moving through five state legislatures. Moving bills are those that have passed at least one chamber of the state legislature or have had some sort of committee action (e.g., a hearing since the beginning of 2022, an amendment, or a committee vote). In total, lawmakers in 27 states have proposed at least 148 election interference bills.’ (BrennanCenterforJustice) See link below.
Today’s Letter has put our country’s Independence Day, in perspective. Hotdogs and American flags will not be foremost on the minds of many Americans. These are the words of President Johnson in celebration of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“The purpose of the law is simple. It does not restrict the freedom of any American, so long as he respects the rights of others. It does not give special treatment to any citizen…. It does say that…those who are equal before God shall now also be equal in the polling booths, in the classrooms, in the factories, and in hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, and other places that provide service to the public.”
I'm proud to say that in an hour I will join a two-year faithful BLM vigil which I do almost every Sunday. It's interesting that it is located beside (and sponsored by)an Episcopal church which is so white, but has a Black woman Bishop. One small step for humankind...most all passing cars honk and wish us well, but of course there are the occasional middle fingers.
And as if like the Movie “ Back To The Future “ Women of all races and Black Americans are being Discriminated against in plain site.Our new name will be “ America The Republican Kingdom “.Now I know why they spent so much time hanging out with Dictators.
'The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting. '
Thank you, Mim. I believed that HCR's historical references to 'Freedom Summer', LBJ's determination to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the powerful intransigence toward civil rights legislation by the Southern states pointed to comparing then with now. I would suggest that a comparison of presidential leadership than and now may also be noted. It will take a great deal more activism on the part of citizens to promote our rights to privacy, equality, protection of fair and free elections, the regulation of business and of the environment as well as knowledge of who the conservative, right-wing Justices on the Supreme Court are serving if we are to stop the USA's descent to autocracy.
Problem is, Fern, too many citizens couldn't give a hoot about being politically active. They are too self-involved to care about others and what the effect policies and rulings have on all of us. Many, I've heard, are so disinterested they haven't even been watching or reading about the Jan. 6 hearings. Ostriches with their heads in the sand, they're more concerned about inflation and the price of gasoline.
Mim, Your response indicates the true 'elephant' in the room. It's the American people, but I would not settle on that. Perhaps, it is a 'lazy' way out. Let's not rest on that premise.
Eyes need to be opened. Rights are being being stripped, free and fair elections are in serious jeopardy...Earth is Endangered: 'There are now 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List, and 16,306 of them are endangered species threatened with extinction. This is up from 16,118 last year. This includes both endangered animals and endangered plants. The species endangered include one in four mammals, one in eight birds, one third of all amphibians and 70% of the world’s assessed plants on the 2007 IUCN Red List are in jeopardy of extinction'.
All Americans, whether they care about the survival of earth, plants, animals, the air, the water, each other, Democracy … are in terrible trouble. Eyes, minds and hearts need to be opened.
Fern, as a supporter of environmental organizations for many, many decades, I know the peril species are in, but just this week Biden has broached the possibility of offshore drilling again, which would endanger species, including our own, because the world is doing nowhere near enough to get a handle on climate control. We should have had "sapiens" taken out of our binomial name a long time ago.
I don't suppose it has anything to do with the oligarchy sqeezing blood out of us ex-middle class turnips? When one has to consentrate so much of ones energy one finding the next meal, politics loses priority.
So one can be “unalterably opposed” to any form of discrimination, but not willing to end the damn filibuster so laws can be passed, or at least brought to a vote. They should at least be forced to actually filibuster IN PERSON!!
Hear hear!!! And not in teams, either. They should have to do it like Jimmy Stewart in *Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.* I know the movie isn’t strictly accurate, but damn it, the threat of a filibuster should be called out.
I have no doubt that if the Republicans take the Senate, they will expand, contract, or remove the filibuster in any way that suits their purpose. Refusing to change the filibuster because Republicans might abuse it only guarantees that the Democrats can't do anything at all in the five minutes they have left to do anything at all. Frankly, I'm tired of the Democrats tying their own hands behind their backs and blaming it on fear of what Republicans will do. This is the very reason Republicans have been able to get where they are today.
Precisely. If the Rs have a Senate majority, McTurtle will blow up the filibuster faster than you can say filibuster, and pass every odious bill he can. Bet on it!
He had a different idea of what discrimination meant and of who it applied to. He was indeed an originalist in the sense of the 18th C when people were evidently white, european, male, wealthy and in power.....no discrimination against them by those who were just there to serve them...... of course.
And show up for the damn vote! It should be a % of senators that vote not a number like 60. If 80 vote, then 60% of that should be the filibuster number. They should be forced to declare on important issues.
I mean it is their job, we voted for them to do their job! This not voting and refusing to take up hard legislation - not doing your job! I am sick and tired of these ultra white men and some women who think their job is to be shock jocks and not even sit down at a table and discuss making laws. Maybe the Supreme Court is using the word originalist to mean legislation for the past 50 years because tbh SCOTUS has been having to interpret a lot coming from Congress since they are leaving a lot out of their legislation. Heck we don’t even have an equal rights bill and it is 2022.
I don't believe we should write off the civil rights era as a bust. It was an era when ordinary people found courage and inspiration to face down a vicious racist system that had been in place for hundreds of years. Every generation has its own challenges. This is another moment when we must all stand together against another vicious enemy that has vowed to erase the dream of American. This must be another freedom summer!
Yes , we did believe that and I thought our struggles with racism would end in a generation, how wrong I was. We may even see a state’s rights agenda that may try to reestablish some form of segregation. Unbelievable , yet now possible. Lots of folks never got over school desegregation in 1954 and later the civil rights legislation.
Joseph, A Paul Krugman opinion in the NYT connects with your comment.
Paul Krugman, opinion NYT about Republican Party and extremism
“And because G.O.P. extremism is fed by resentment against the very things that, as I see it, truly make America great — our diversity, our tolerance for difference — it cannot be appeased or compromised with. It can only be defeated.”
Same here, “the very things that make America great,” are on the chopping block. Now thanks to the MAGAts who have made a joke of What has made America great.
The heart or the politics? The heart works with a little play, but yes, isn’t the political broken, but maybe repairable? I’m trying to have hope. Trying.
Krugman wonders why the G.O.P. has become an extremist, anti-democratic party. He looks to history for precedents, and he settles on the KKK of the 1920s (as explained in Linda Gordon's 2017 book, "The Second Coming of the KKK: The Klu Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition") as being most similar in genesis: "a "politics of resentment" driven by the backlash of white, rural and small-town Americans against a changing nation. The K.K.K. hated immigrants and “urban elites”; it was characterized by “suspicion of science” and “a larger anti-intellectualism.”
Thanks Irene. We cannot allow our country to stay in reverse gear. Unpacking SCOTUS is not only desirable , but essential. We need a Democratic Party majority but not with those such as Manchin and Sinema. Meanwhile , we are waiting and waiting for DOJ to do what needs to be done. Where are the indictments of the White House ring of traitors?
We need a government that works for ordinary American in the 21st century. People buy a house in their preferred location, then they remodel it to meet how a family lives today. Our government could use some remodeling. 13-15 judges on the Supreme Court would be better than 9. Nine is a small number whose majority has been manipulated to be the best court money can buy. Anyone who thinks the current group has not been bought is foolish and naive.
Yes. I sometimes think our Republican friends have become successful by believing that how they win is of lesser and lesser importance. Method success protects the achieved evil that comes to be believed good as so many of US say it is so with convincing rhetoric. A cautionary fable perchance for those of us fighting for the lost cause, the perfect, and the idea locked up in the soundproof room where our ideology is applauded.
Agree. But did you watch HCR’s video of 6/30? She estimates we have only two years to effect meaningful legislative change. With Congress as it is, and, worse, as it may become after the midterms, I can’t feel optimistic. I’m writing frequently to my senators and representative, but that’s sort of preaching to the choir since they’re all Democrats. I send money every month to Fair Fight and to candidates that I think/hope may have a chance in the midterms, but my contributions are nothing compared with what the GOP is able to rake in from its mega donors. In short, I feel hopeless, but still determined to do what I can. BTW, I lived in the segregated South, but when I moved to Chicago in 1979, I immediately discovered that it was even more segregated and racist than Chapel Hill, NC.
I think what you can afford should be spread around. It didn’t state who or where the donations went to. The FL guy, not TFG has bragged that his Campaign alone has taken in over a Million.Yrs ago I read back in the 1950’s there were about 200 Lobbyist. Today, 10k -15 K maybe more since my last search of them. We have lots of Millionaires now. 750 there abouts Billionaires and Trillionairs. How much Democracy can all of us afford ?
Friends from Chicago spoke of their surprise at the number of mixed couples we have here in France, saying you'd never see that in their city...
We in turn are surprised by many apparent obsessions in American society with ideas that have gotten lodged in people's heads; fixed ideas about things like features and skin color ("race") or "gender"... or "rugged individualism" -- commonly expressed as thoroughgoing conformism. Ideas that solidify into tumors. All accompanied by blind collective belief, typically in things that are radically incompatible.
Ha! Good ol' Apple Chill. ;) I attended graduate school there, many decades ago. I remember when Jesse Helms suggested building a fence around Chapel Hill.
It's not preaching to the choir, Joanna, it's giving your legislators the stats they need to prove this is an issue their constituents care about. You also provide fresh language for them to articulate the case for legislation. My personal goal is to eradicate 'at the end of the day' or 'the American people want' (that one is Mitch's). Fresh language, original perspectives on issues, wake people up.
Yes, there were great stirrings in the Sixties and Seventies. A generation later, I had an idealistic friend who'd wax lyrical about "The New Paradigm"... He couldn't see that he was waving a red rag before the Minotaur...
'The Minotaur, Ancient Greek Mythology, is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "part man and part bull". 'The Minotaur was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus.'
"Minotaur" was originally a proper noun in reference to this mythical figure. That is, there was only the one Minotaur. In contrast, the use of "minotaur" as a common noun to refer to members of a generic "species" of bull-headed creatures developed much later, in 20th-century fantasy genre fiction.' It is not difficult to guess the 'species' Peter was referring to in his comment. I don't see a 'Theseus' hanging around to knock our 'minotaur' off.
'A scientific interpretation also exists. Citing early descriptions of the minotaur by Callimachus as being entirely focused on the "cruel bellowing" it made from its underground labyrinth and the extensive tectonic activity in the region, Science journalist Matt Kaplan has theorised that the myth may well stem from geology. He points out that carbon dating of marine fossils attached to boulders that were ejected from the ocean by ancient tsunamis indicates the region was tectonically very active during the years when the minotaur myth first appeared.' (Wikipedia)
As usual, Peter, you're on something, but I for one will not return to Greek Mythology for more insight concerning America's problems. It would not have occurred to me to spend a few minutes on the minotaur but for you. Am I glad I did? I'll take the 5th.
Look at what I regard as Picasso's masterpiece, the big Minotauromachy etching from 1935 -- go to the MOMA site. (Sorry, can't help you directly, my computer's down...)
This says more than half-dead terms like "Reaction" or "the Patriarchy" when it comes to speaking of the Beast of our times...
I found Picasso's Minotauromachy etching right away. You were on to something! I am happy to a followed your lead. This etching must be seen face to face. It is a multilayered work appearing to move from the inside. Thank you, Peter.
Holy cow once again. I was in high school for most of the time you have written about here. I was a strong student and went on to a great university, and, once again, you have taught me more in this essay about my own life than I knew yesterday. With ongoing appreciation to you. Time off I hope.
This is where we are today, lots of folks not paying attention, and not believing they need to, and not voting.
Worse, the airwaves and "news" is faux. THIS is the time to get out the vote, register nonvoters, raise some consciousness! Join your local Democrat club, lend a hand.
Wife and I are marching with county Democrats tomorrow in our July 4 parade.
Yesterday, I knocked on doors of registered independent voters in working class neighborhood, and found three conservative households who will vote straight "D" this autumn
And I think I found three, or maybe four, families wanting Democratic Party yard signs!
I was eleven in 1964 and grew up in Virginia, the bastion of *Massive Resistance.* My parents were deep-dyed Republicans and segregationists. My county of Culpeper would not integrate our schools for two more years. We watched the news every evening, and I remember all these events, tho thru the lens of my young understanding. When I read President Johnson’s words I can hear his voice. Where is an LBJ today? I am married to a trump loyalist and my heart is torn every day for my country. My actions are very limited, but I can contact my senators, Rubio and Scott, and my representative, Daniel Webster. But what is the most effective way? I barraged them with email when Ukraine was invaded, with no response beyond the automatic ones. What can I do better?
A good friend recently told me that she had signed up for a project called “Vote Forward”. She signed up to write and send letters to 20 people in key states. The letters simply encourage people to vote. No soliciting votes for a specific candidate; nor for a specific political party or issue. She understands this has already shown to increase voter turn out. You can sign up for however many you wish to send. I assume the project sends you a list of names with addresses and probably a sample letter. I assume you can find Vote Forward by googling it. Definitely a force for the good! Best of luck!
Thank you so much. My husband is my best friend; we’ll have been married for 46yrs in December and I can’t give up on him. I was a loyal GOP wife until TFG. And I feel so helpless and angry. I appreciate this idea.
Well, swell! Glad I can pass along a little medicine. A best friend is the best! Precious enough you can practice loving him and loving your own authenticity and independent spirit at the same time. Khalil Gibran in his Book The Prophet in the chapter in On Marriage who advises:”Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
You are welcome, Suzanne Crockett. Your openness and genuineness have touched many of us and opened the door to the wisdom and resources abiding in the community - resources all of us can now access - Vote Forward and The States Project. Together we stand. In gratitude.
I had to go up on the web and discover what TFG meant. Good for you for standing up for principled behavior. I admire you for your steadfast standing up for your beliefs.
I wrote 1200 Vote Forward letters in 2020 and I’m well on my way to doing it again. As I understand it, the letters go to registered Democrats who haven’t voted recently. Urge them to pay attention and vote. Worth every penny in my opinion.
Thanks for the suggestion, Selina! I found their website. BTW, their page reminds volunteers that forever stamps will go up to 60 cents on July 10. Their link:
YES! VOTE FORWARD! Also, postcards! The price of a stamp, or several hundred of them, is worth the opportunity to inform, change minds, and GOTV. Also, texting; NextGen makes it easy. ResistBot; check out Chop Wood Carry Water. As someone earlier wrote, "Let's Roll"
Yes, I have done this. Your information is accurate. It is a template letter, but there is a space for a personal message regarding why voting is important to you
I’m sorry for you and your situation. We left North FL after thirty-one years and returned to MA here we’d always maintained a place for a last stand. We feared that FL would become a difficult place to live in as it transitions into DeSantisland and Trump’s hide-out. I have a brother who is living in SC, and has become a fantasyland religious fundamentalist and a yes-but Trump follower. These are terrible times for thinking and caring people, and I wish you well. Be careful and preserve your friendships to stay sane and positive. Good luck.
My best friend’s husband cowed her into the insanity. And she is way smarter. But he has his bluff in on the whole family. Stand firm, women. BTW, I lost her as best friend, another reason to hate tfg
Thank you, J.P. We’ve only lived here since. November 2021, so all my friends are online now. A small group on FB Messenger, an FB page called “Trump Bashing Bishes” that my husband can’t see, and of course Dr. Richardson and y’all. The people here help me know I’m not alone.
My parents were on opposite ends of the spectrum. I wondered how they could stay together. Hard to live with someone so rabid about some issues and concepts that you can’t talk with them about current events. Sadly I Find myself in somewhat of the same situation. Politics and current events can be difficult to share.
Truth. We watched the Jan 6 insurrection together, on Fox, from the middle of dt’s speech until the end of that awful day. And we didn’t see it the same way. My heart is still broken.
We can’t/don’t watch the news together. Mostly I don’t want to know what he thinks about some things. Our birth siblings are on opposite ends of spectrum. I was oblivious about that when we met. We share a lot of good but I wish we could talk about a lot of these issues. I am grateful for my siblings and friends and HCR who helps me be informed.
Oh Suzanne! I admire you. Don't give up! Keep hammering away, like a woodpecker. They know, even if they haven't the guts to reply. Keep it going. P.S. I've just read Selina's reply to you. Good!!!
Join with others. Find a group that is working to perhaps flip your state legislature from red to blue . I suggest THE STATES PROJECT. There are others but this group has giving circles you can join and meet other people. There are groups who write post cards and knock on doors. Seek out others to work with to magnify your impact. Good luck.
Heather, this is breathtaking. I am reminded of that summer, I was 15 and wanted to go to Mississippi. My mother put her foot down and told me to picket the bank on the corner where we lived in NYC and who refused Black families mortgages. “I’m not letting some southern sheriff kill you!” And then, the three civil rights workers were murdered. I will never get over it…
The Andrew Goodman foundation was established to fight for voting rights by his family and friends. They are working on the 30million young people 18-30 year olds who don't know diddlysquat about the people who died for the right to vote and don't care enough to inform themselves and vote.
Now their civil rights are being systematically stripped away and one day their right to marry whom they want, the right for an abortion after they were careless, their right to vote will have been stripped away and then their rights might make a difference but it is too late. KNOW SOMEONE LIKE THAT.
Talk to him/her and explain what happened in Germany in the 1920s.... and then they came for you.....etc. .
REGISTER THEM AND LEAD THEM TO THE BALLOT BOX. ASK THEM TO READ Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning. By: Timothy Snyder.
This touched me so much. I have tears because we are at another turning point as a nation. It is a reminder that the people can demand change, demand justice. I have already been to two prochoice marches. I think it is time for our nation to speak up, before it is too late, to save democracy. The Supreme Court has too much power. We have a narrow window to come together before we lose our freedom. We must speak up loudly and boldly. Your essay is a strong reminder of the pain our country has faced and the turning point when people demand justice and a strong leader fought for that justice. Please do not quit writing. Your writing is a constant inspiration.
My family moved to Atlanta in June of ‘64 the day I graduated from HS near Portland OR, while I was born and raised in Detroit I spent my HS years in the west, I had a front row seat to the integration of the Deep South, moving here was like moving to another planet. I have lived and worked from one end of this country to another. I live in the South today because this is where my parents spent their last days, and I wanted to be near them as well as my extended family who for the most part live here. Georgia is changing, slowly but it is changing, a lot of that change is because of people like me that were raised elsewhere and now live here. Having a highly educated population, while it doesn’t guarantee evolution, has certainly helped Georgia become bluer. The mid-terms this fall and the general in 2 years are going to determine if we continue to have a country that we will want to live in. Stay tuned, it looks like it’s going to be close.
Same, Frank. Long before we moved here 9 months ago, to support divorced son and 3yo grandson, I read that Florida is divided into three parts - Lower Alabama, God’s Waiting Room (where we live) and Northern Havana. People in north Florida are going to be red for a while, and south Florida Hispanics have been told that Democrats are socialists.
Suzanne, there is one more part in Florida....the I-4 corridor which cuts across the State and includes East Central Florida. It is not the Villages, nor is it Havana North, but it IS almost 25% Hispanic/ Latino and growing. Someone else pointed you to Anna Eskamani, who is wonderful. And, of course, Val Demings is from Central Florida and running for US Senate against Marco Rubio. Lots to support here, despite the MAGA presence. Not much I can add to Selena's beautiful message except to say connect your energy to that which gives you hope; don't waste it on trying to change those who refuse to listen. You are not alone in Florida. We are out here and with you in spirit. Remember that when things get tough. You do have a tribe!!
I do not usually write comments but as I read Heather's analysis it energizes me to write something and I have done so twice before this comment. Today in history and during the protests against the war in Viet Nam was a time when America was trying to live up to the idea of liberty and justice for all. The nomination and defeat of Goldwater was the beginning of the movement which has taken hold today and instead of just a few states it seems to be growing around the country and is based, for the most part, on lies and deception. Until recently we had a government with checks and balances with the Supreme Court holding the needle steady for those freedoms. It now seems, through the help of the Republican Senate, the Court has decided to join those seeking to divide the country and to take away, not only personal rights, but also the ability for our nation to protect the planet and who knows what else is on the chopping block. It is now up to us to change the bend of time and right the ship. Get out and work to register and get people to vote and spread the word of Heather Cox Richardson and her logic.
Tonight we worship women. As one wise subject said, her pal said dryly, men have not been doing all that well of late.
Women would do for a few decades... there is a lot to unscramble... and we all know it.
Liz Cheney, no doubt dealing quietly with the sins of her father, W and the rest of the Bush family, has at last stood tall and she deserves our respect, and should be reelected and elevated. Wyoming, you know what to do... start by apologising.
Casady Hutchinson is really first. She makes me feel better. WE ARE PROUD OF CASADY HUTCHINSON AROUND HERE. She has dealt with staggering stress and the usual Trump Tricks from within the scummy GOP... as they have tried to turn her in for saving us. That same element has attracted Cassidy’s followers.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is next, and she should arrange to award Cassie Hutchinson for her stunning performance.
Ketanji Brown Jackson, our new and greatest Justice of the Supreme Court... is the most noble of tonight’s women. She has endured in the face of gale force winds of prejudice and is about to enter the Cave where truth goes to die... and prejudice is codified... and periodic intervals by a few pin heads that think they are fooling us.
The fabulous Cassidy Hutchinson, questioned by co-chair Cheney, has demonstrated that she is more than able to sort out the criminal element in this Republican White House and the power structure in Washington, DC, and she HAS emerged to teach the nation and her compromised miserable seniors a lesson in ethics, courage, and patriotism... showing her grasp of the constitution and common sense... and her gentle contempt for Mark Meadows, Pasquale A. Cipollone, Mike Pence, the former president, as Sir Rudy, Rudolph William Louis Giuliani, son of a Sing-Sing jailed convict, and lying Rep. Jim Jordan, who is accused of molesting wrestlers under his care, and so, so many others are guilty of sedition, terrorism, criminal trespass and much more - and all, all, and must be prosecuted... along with the man that promulgated all this and is guilty of so much more, former president Donald John Trump, the only president in history that has hidden his transcripts and been impeached twice.
And let’s thank our favourite midnight historian for her labours... I would jump for joy if Heather Cox Richardson found a way to flavour her labours with depth where it comes to describing the pain of being Black in America today - for the depth of our prejudice has not changed since our founding - we have simply altered the rules now and then to follow the arc of history as slowly as possible, to please Texas and many others, as we disgrace ourselves... and cannot seem to find the way Cassidy Hutchinson as found... which is as sad as it is enraging. As they said over Pennsylvania in the last airliner to fall... before the DOD directed flying bomb, Let’s Roll.
I was eight in 1964, a white child in Indianola, MS. I can attest to the determination that was already taking root among white men like my father to undo all the good that was being done. The last vote he ever cast was for Donald Trump, and he would be thrilled with the current SCOTUS decisions. I am sixty-five, in good health, and hoping to live long enough to see this court’s despicable revisionism undone.
It appears the radical right is bent on circumventing precisely what our constitution intended to prevent: authoritarian rule by a select few, that authoritarians select church. All under a loose narcissistic definition of liberty.
I've written this before and I'll do it again; it isn't liberty they're after, it's license. They already have liberty. What they want is to exert unlimited power over people they don't like without consequence to themselves.
I was on a scholarship to Montana SU in 1963-64. Most of the scholarship consisted of board and lodging with a fraternity. "Being there" doesn't mean I can do without this fine history lesson. I quit my pledge to become a member of the fraternity when I learnt it was only for whites. I'm still glad I did, at the age of 19, but it was hard to let these nice guys down; and they were scrambling every month to pay for my stay. I found it weird that the fraternity had been allowed to enter a program for international understanding, and I did not want it to be said of me that I ever was a member of a racist organization.
Even as a 13-year-old, I was caught up in the fervor of 1964. Life magazine and the CBS Evening News were my conduits to the outside world. After the Cuban Missile Crisis and JFK assassination in 1962 and 1963, I began feeling connected to life beyond the lakes and orange groves and ocean beaches of Central Florida.
I remember going to see LBJ speak at a campaign stop in the parking lot of a shopping center in Orlando. And his landslide victory and a huge Democratic majority in Congress produced a stunning number of victories for civil rights and so much more. Back then, many Republicans voted with Democrats to offset the votes of Southern Democrats.
After my high school integrated without the rancor so common elsewhere in the South, it left with me the impression that America would always be moving forward, striving to make the country and people's lives better.
And now I'm an old dude perplexed by our rapid demise despite so much promise, so much ability to do good. How is it possible that Goldwater's radical words in 1964 — “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And…moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue” — came roaring to life 57 years later on Jan. 6? And all based on the biggest lie in U.S. political history, a lie that keeps metastasizing.
It's beginning to look, as the professor wrote so profoundly, that the South has indeed won the Civil War.
"How is it possible that Goldwater's radical words in 1964 — “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And…moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue” — came roaring to life 57 years later on Jan. 6?"
1. Fox News. (Cable)
2. Rush Limbaugh (AM Radio)
3. Survivor.
4. The Apprentice.
5. The Kardashians.
Or, is it just: The problem with America is Americans?
The South has been winning the war since 1865 when the traitorous military and political leaders were not tried and punished. Lincoln hoped to bring about real peace, but the same evil that started the Civil War murdered him. The evil of former times now is entrenched on the SC. The court MUST be reformed.
Ronald Reagan choose to give his first speech after being nominated by the Republicans for president in 1980 in Philadelphia, Mississippi. It was a racist dog whistle about states rights.
It worked!!
The dogs came running to slobber all over Reagan and turn him into an "American Patriot" for:
1. Lying about "fiscal responsibility" but actually leaving the US with 3.1 Trillion dollars of added debt over his 8 years (>5 Trillion in today's dollars), the first Presdent since WW II, at the time, to INCREASE the debt of the USA. (look at any graph). Jimmy Carter had left a "mere" 1.1 Trillion dollar debt having continued to pay down WW II/Vietnam debt like all other Presidents since WW II. Reagan painted Carter as wildly out of control spender on Welfare when, in fact, Carter continued to pay down the US debt during his entire tenure. Reagan sold us lies.
2. Making up a story about a black woman on welfare, in Chicago, who had 15 addresses and was collecting a check at each of those addresses from welfare. This was a lie. However, to Americans it had broad apeal and resonated.
3. Selling the concept that if we CUT TAXES (on corporations, and wealthy individual Americans), Revenue into the US Treasury would go UP. George HW Bush called this concept "Voodoo Economics" for the obvious reason that, 1) it was wrong and 2) it was also a lie. Also, as a grad student, when I started, I paid no taxes on my piddling stipend. Reagan made it so I DID pay taxes. He increased taxes on Grad students. Education is bad in Republican circles!!
4. Increasing military spending to pay off Military Contractors for funding his campaign. Later, Republicans tried to use this irresponsible military spending to claim credit for Gorbachev's brave efforts to release the Soviet Union from its dark days by trying to associate the ridiculously increased military spending with the fall of the Berlin Wall. Reagan was just the ACCIDENTAL President when Gorbachev, an actual visionary leader, took the wall down and opened the Soviet Union. But, smile and take credit Reagan could do!! That (claiming credit for something one had/has nothing to do with) is one of the aspects of white culture I find most reprehensible after 38 years in America's corporations.
Reagan. A disaster for America in a blundering smile, cloaked by evil lies, hiding behind a faint intelligence.
But, Americans lapped up those lies like kittens lap up sweet, warm milk. Yes indeed. We did.
It was Reagan's election that was my awakening to who I was really sharing a country with. I had just started college and I could not believe that anyone would vote for an actor in the role of president although the bartender in the college bar where I waited tables told me she was going to vote for him because he had once given her a good tip. I thought of her as an airhead and could not believe that most people would vote for him. Later on, I noticed former classmates, including Black ones who had gone to Ivy League universities, bragging about voting for him, and I was shocked. I thought, well, these were the jocks from my elite independent school. They all went on to become stockbrokers and make a lot of money and considered themselves the smart players of the Reagan 80s. Later on they would go to fund Obama's campaign and pretend they had never been Reaganites and embraced Reaganomics. When Reagan won I renewed my German passport and made sure that I had an escape plan. However, little did I know at the time that under Reagan scientists brought evidence to the fossil fuel industry that global warming was happening and brought it to politicians as well. According to the book, Losing Earth: A Recent History by Nathaniel Rich, it was Reagan who decided to ignore the evidence, even though the fossil fuel industry was listening to scientists and ready to invest in alternative sources of fuel. Reagan came on board and told them, no you don't need to do that because I am going to put an insider in charge of the industry and then we can let someone in the future solve the problems. Perhaps he really did believe someone would come up with a way to solve the problem, perhaps he did not care. I tend to think he was just not mentally fit enough to understand the problem and was surrounded by corrupt advisors. We can see how well that is working. Our planet is one big climate disaster at this point, and it is hitting some harder than others. There are many ways to see Putin's war on Ukraine as an offshoot of global warming because there is a fight for increasingly scarce resources and Ukraine is blessed with plenty for the new green future, as well as those that everyone needs now, like grain, location by the sea with the harvest and shipping. Luckily, in Ukraine their actor president was a lawyer before and he is a sharp thinker. He sees the value of the area that Russia is trying to take.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/08/01/magazine/climate-change-losing-earth.html
Unfortunately for the planet Reagan was voted in by a lot of Democrats who turned Republican, eager for making money not by hard work but by becoming investment mangers and through the stock markets. "The American dream!" One thing that struck me about Reagan is that he was a leader that told Americans that they no longer had to have the manners they had been raised with where they would consider others, it was okay to brag and say, ME! ME! ME! That was the big psychological switch that I noticed that made him so popular. He was the guru of being self serving. The culture changed. Everyone was allowed to be selfish. Then came Donald Trump. He added another big cultural switch. This one was called everyone can be an open racist jerk! That was a new enlightenment to people. These are two big cultural shifts I have observed and one said, I your leader permit you to be selfish, and the next is I permit you not to be PC. This has made all the grumblers happy. The people who are too inconvenienced to consider others feelings, or other's cultures or place in society. If Reagan had not primed people to be selfish maybe they would not have so easily made the shift to Trump's out and out it is okay to have bad behavior. In any case, Reagan made a shift that many people were duped into following because it allowed them to do what they wanted and not consider others. Now we have gotten more of that with Trump, and it is hard to put the Genie back into the bottle. Biden hoped that if he could get his bill passed and let Americans see that there is a role for government and if they lived under a well run country which anyone under 60 probably doesn't even have an inkling of what government can be doing for a country in an experiential kind of way unless they immigrated her from elsewhere, because Reagan so thoroughly destroyed government taking care of people. People who lack imagination need to experience personally, they cannot just be told how it will be. It seems Biden understood that and so do all of the Republicans that are trying to thwart him. So, we are in a pretty pickle now.
Biden had the right idea: that government should indeed take care of people, but he never quite accepted that the people on the other side of the aisle are no longer like the ones he knew and worked with and compromised with when he was in the Senate. They are unrepentant Trumpists or, like McConnell, simply self-interested, with no concern that their actions are hurting or killing people. These senators are encouraging their constituents, by their awful example, to be ugly and uncaring. The pickle we are in is not at all pretty.
Compare Reagan's quips about "government" with the word of one of the founders of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln:
"The legitimate object of government, is to do for a community of people, whatever they need to have done, but can not do, at all, or can not, so well do, for themselves -- in their separate, and individual capacities."
And in a government of, by, and for the people, we do it for each other, in concert, in a variety of ways. Reagan's and the modern GOP's "small government" was always a Trojan Horse for "anti-democracy" and feudalism-lite in its stead. "GOP" "small government" is selective; small for some, robust for others. Bankrupted bankers got Big help in Subprime Crisis, but aiding financially impacted ordinary folks was "moral hazard". The rich and powerful enjoyed waves of tax cuts and responsibility lifting "deregulation", while police where militarized, and responded with an increasingly heavy hand with those already most deprived.
Yet to this day, Reagan retains a media-fabricated "nice guy" image, even among some liberals, and even many Democrats, at least passively, support some form of "Reaganomic" prescriptions.
J L, I will never forgive Obama for not going after the banks that caused the crash. Their getting away with their malfeasance gave others the excuse to act similarly (just like not penalizing the Republicans who ignored subpoenas during the two impeachment trials gives those subpoenaed by the Jan. 6 Committee a similar get-out-of-jail-free card).
And I'm worried that if Merrick Garland doesn't indict Trump soon, Trump will declare his candidacy and use that as an excuse to be ineligible for indictment.
Feudalism-lite? Lite?
There was some reciprocity even in racketeering -- pay up and we'll protect you. Where's there any reciprocity in our current corporate feudalism?
The people don't even have serf status.
He had better shift from that myth
Linda, I wholeheartedly agree with what you said. I turned 18 in 1972 and voted in my first presidential election for George McGovern. I proudly voted for President Carter in 1976 and 1980. I was shocked at all the people around me that voted for Reagan in 1980. Many were relatives from the WWII generation that had voted for FDR, Truman, Ike, Jack, LBJ's vision of a Great Society, and would have voted for Bobby too. How dare they vote for Reagan. I still don't understand it to this day. You are spot on about the permission Reagan gave to people to turn their backs on the New Deal and Civil Rights. Now Trump and the permission to be a racist, uncivil, and to be unpatriotic. Tomorrow on July 4, the MAGA clan dishonors all the Americans that have come before them to fight for the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. I fear that most of them have never even read the Declaration of Independence. I very much miss Bobby Kennedy today.
The very good who were assassinated in the 1960s....I often wonder where we would be today if MLK and RFK were still alive...for that matter, how history was altered by Lincoln's assasination at such a pivotal time.
I was so upset by those three assassinations that I and my young family expatriated for awhile. It was unbelievable. It still frightens me, that no matter the visible goodness, there is treachery behind the scenes. Today is no exception.
Treachery is an abiding feature of human nature. I think we are wise to always be aware or it, to attempt to inhibit and manage it, and not to let it obscure what can be cherished, where and when that is possible. According to Victor Frankel, even in extreme circumstances.
I bemoan that lack of a civics education for so many of our young. I believe strongly in the importance of taking personal responsibility for one’s own education and no longer relying solely on either a public or private education system to deliver that education essential to understanding the world and the breadth of its horizons. I do believe strongly in the benefits of and support a strong and healthy public education system but see it as the cornerstone of a sound education not the completed structure. The task of building upon that
cornerstone is a lifelong task always available to be augmented and strengthened.
While our initial minds are not quite William James' "blank slate", our kit is pretty much all learned. Education provide the tools we need for a successful and responsible life, of which a profession is a key but far from the sole component. we cannot change the nature of reality, but by knowing how it works, we can ride it, too degrees, we can even influence what happens next, in pleasing ways, provided we know the rules.
As parents, my wife and I tried to educate our daughter to hit the ground running, equipped to go where she would like on her own two feet. I imagine formal education doing much the same, imparting information, but above all jump-starting or refining self-sustaining and self-revising skills that improve our life and "liberty and justice for all". Fortune favors the prepared mind.
I wonder if it had to do with his sterling image as host of the GE sponsored Sunday night TV? All America watched the good program after Sunday family dinners.
He was on television....and everyone that had a television knew him?
And Trump's TV program, too.
" I tend to think he was just not mentally fit enough to understand the problem and he was surrounded by corrupt advisors." BINGO! I think that is a key modus operandi of the Republican party. They choose a showman, a popular figure to be president, then pull strings behind him. Although George HW Bush seemed to try to be fair, just look at little Bush, Trump et al. They were and are among the least brightest men at the helm. Each had cabinets that just did awful things. Reagan was diagnosed with Alzheimer's shortly after his term ended.
And was surely suffering with it during his administration.
Nancy Reagan, the de-facto first female president.
Oh, don't forget Eleanor Roosevelt. She was the person who convinced FDR of policy many times. She was an avid social activist and humanitarian, while he was a good ol' boy and a ladies' man. But, she made him see the liberal light, (and sometimes she leveraged his unfaithfulness!)
An argument could be made for Edith Wilson, after Woodrow Wilson had his stroke.
Nancy, ruling by astrology!
Yes! I remember how often he said, "I can't remember" when questioned about the Iran-Contra affair.
My aunt saw the Alzheimer's while Reagan was still president.
He was also a greedy worm, I see it every day in memory care. Some people may be demented but they were evil before. I’d bet the farm.
I vaguely recall an article in the NYT during Reagan's presidency titled "What the President Didn't Know, and When He Didn't know it" detailing some fairly disturbing examples of Reagan being pretty out of it, but no one seemed to care, and his faux-folksy persona seemed to cover a multitude of deficits.
I am often asked by fellow Progressive activists why it is that the clear evidence revealed in the January 6 Committee investigation has failed to separate Trump supporters from him. Why do they persist in supporting a politician who is so clearly corrupt and malevolent?
I believe it is because his supporters covet similar power over others. They feel that they have lost influence and control as society has become more diverse and groups who formerly had little power have found an agency and increased influence. Trump's supporters and those of Trump-like Republicans are not at all in favor of the equality of all. Rather they desire a world in which there are “real Americans” and “the others.” Trump supporters wish to hold the power to decide who is in which of those groups and empower the “real Americans” with the ability to govern, to decide right and wrong, whose votes should count and whose should not, what children should be taught in public schools, what books should be available in libraries, who can marry or not, and what faiths are acceptable or not. It is all about power for oneself over the agency of others. It is not simply about admiring or support of him, they truly wish to hold the same type of power over others they see Trump desires or holds.
The biggest danger of Trump is that his narcissism is highly contagious and he is patient zero of a narcissism pandemic.
Brilliantly said, Bruce. Contagious narcissism and I would add contagious cynicism, too. So jarring that people calling themselves Christian are among the worst affected, the words of Jesus not a being a big influence on them.
Keep in mind there are plenty of progressive Christians and people of faith who are actively engaged in justice work but the media ignores us and finds us boring:)
Rupert has eaten their brains
Does that mean Rupert is a zombie?
They are the descendants of the confederacy. They have never recovered from the loss of position. It used to be enough, and still is in some parts, to merely be white male.
I liked this for your honest appraisal but not for the truth of what you’ve realized.
They persist because Trumpism is Fascism.
So powerful, and so true: "One thing that struck me about Reagan is that he was a leader that told Americans that they no longer had to have the manners they had been raised with where they would consider others, it was okay to brag and say, ME! ME! ME! That was the big psychological switch that I noticed that made him so popular. He was the guru of being self serving. The culture changed. Everyone was allowed to be selfish. "
Yes, it was a turning point towards me vs we. As Candidate Reagan replied, "there he goes again" towards President Carter's clarion calls for conservation, he cast caution to the wind.
I briefly encountered Ronnie as an Undergraduate at UCLA at a Regent`s Meeting that was declared an "Illegal Assemby" & the curtain pulled back to a thick Glass Wall revealing a '60's Tableau of students being battered back with Police Batons. Reagan? Ronnie was acting non-plussed waiting for the Director to yell, "Cut" - that's a Print.
Odd to contemplate given Nixon's irresponsibility in other areas, but Nixon was forward-looking and protective of the environment. Protection of the global environment as antithetical to the official Republican notion of "freedom" began with Reagan.
Karen Hessel
Yes and folks tend to BLAME US BOOMERS, yet it was the conservatives who were self centered, and many of us rejected those values in favor of justice and peace. Why we were accused of being spoiled and self centered never made any sense, we boomers have always been a divided generation, over civil rights, justice for women and war (Vietnam) et al. So stop blaming us. It was the other part of our generation that messed things up the Gingriches and his gang of cronies. Lindsey Graham etc.
Generational blaming is not very useful since ultimately a society is a whole, as in the end, is our species; and there is always a need for nuance. The bigger issue is the degree to which our society always has, and since Reagan even more so, pandered to the agendas of those with money. The young are not wrong that they are getting the short end of the stick, especially as living wages, and worker protections ebb, college graduation is both more demanded for decent paying jobs, and the price become more personally burdensome, and the planet burns while so many old folks fiddle.
Warnings of the dangers of CO2 pollution have been sounded for decades. Both Nixon and Carter advocated care of the environment; but enough Americans turned our backs, and each of our impacts accumulate to the point, that the future is not looking good.
OMG, I remember everybody, men included, wearing gold necklaces to advertise their new wealth and self-love!
I don't think narcissism has much to do with love, but I suppose that what you love is what you care about, so yeah. Narcissism is good for profit, and a nation that reveres profit uber alles abandons the urge for a civilized society. Trump personifies malignant narcissism, and that is what he and his party now sell.
The troublesome secret of a just and democratic society is its need of discipline and effort. Of liberty is that for the word to have meaning outside the realm of a hermit, we must maintain it together. Liberty and Justice for all means respecting your identical rights; no rape, no polluting the well. Liberty means nothing without diversity (no?) and diversity means inevitable conflicts in good faith. Who get to drive across the intersection first? We have to agree to a common good.
But that's work.; sometimes emotional work, often mental and physical. And seemingly easier solutions are always an easy sell. "Just be selfish" has a certain appeal. "Greed is Good" was a line in a cautionary movie, but Republicans picked it up.
In Greedland, "The only corporate social responsibility a company has is to maximize its profits." You are never to blame, and every problem is somebody else's fault. Trump personifies it, and his party enables him.
You have nailed it about the cultural shift towards self- centeredness. But it began earlier than RR. On campus of U. Of Maryland 1967 there was an “Objectivist” group devoted to worship of Ayn Rand, who pushed “the virtue of selfishness.”
Yes, people who lack imagination. . .
I have a sister and brother-in-law that attended Stanford in the early '80s and worshipped at the altar of Ayn Rand. So many in Silicon Valley were spawned in this culture.
JK Galbraith (FDR’s economist) described conservatives’ age-old search for “a moral justification of selfishness.”
Someone recently put it like this: You can’t tell me what to do. But I can tell you what to do.
She was a phony through and through. As she declared, it’s not who will let me, it’s who will stop me. The chump mantra, including all family
Correct.
Karen,
I read Atlas Shrugged in 1987. After finishing it I wondered where such a skewed picture could emanate from.
Ayn Rand was born in the Soviet Union. Her highly negative view of community was born from the warped view she got in the Soviet Union.
But, her extreme focus on the individual was just as sick and dysfunctional as Soviet Russia was.
There are no children in her created worlds. Plenty of sex. Her family’s pharmacy business was taken by the state when she was a teen. She had sisters in Russia she never connected with again after she left.
So very sad...
Oh wasn't that awful? "Atlas Shrugged" was the book of the day on college campuses. And then little Paul Ryan wanted it to be a model for our nation...and white male supremacy.
Hope Ah, Paul Ryan. Who remembers this brief flash in a pan with great abs (which he displayed) and the kookiest budget proposals since Reags]an’s ‘trickle down’ tax cuts. His brief reign as Hpuse Speaker was almost as disastrous of that of Newt Gingrich. Ryan did require his staff to read Atlas Shrugged. AWWWk. Now we speak of Ryan shrugged.
Good one, Keith! Nice to hear from you again. Happy Fourth!
It was bad enough when Reagan was governor of California and decimated mental health care and public assistance for our most vulnerable people. Thus the beginning of the homeless crisis in our state. His focus was on getting people to question our government in favor of corporate rule by lying and conflating fact with fiction.
Linda, this is a very small cavil, yet I feel bound to make it.
Around the time that Reagan became President, I noticed a sharp switch in motivation among politicians and officials I saw working in Europe. Hitherto, the guiding attitude had been one of "What's in it for US?" In a short space of time, this was replaced by "What's in it for ME?" ME... ME... ME... ME...
Part of this I attribute to the passing of the generation that had fought and suffered in the Second World War, men and women determined to build a better world for posterity. Many in my own generation, born into the war and the struggling period of postwar reconstruction, now wanted a slice of the cake... for themselves. Many relinquished their loudly proclaimed social principles overnight, espousing the new "truths" of Reaganomics, etc. Much turning of coats.
So, yes, Reagan made a fine figurehead for "the clever hopes" of another "low dishonest decade" but it's his paymasters and our society that enabled the damage.
With Donald D.T. we move from the stereotyped puppetry of the period's soap operas through the looking glass into "virtual reality", a world of pure video game projections. Flickering appearances with nothing whatever behind them.
Mass psychosis guaranteed.
There's reason to fear that the cure may be a very hard one.
I am about the same age as you are... My first Presidential election was in 1980, and I totally agree with your analysis! My shock was when some professed Christians told me they were voting for Reagan, "because he is a Christian ". The mess we are in now has certainly been brewing for a long time.
So Jimmy Carter’s faith did not count as Christian? He told us to put on sweaters and turn down the thermostat, that was unforgivable. What’s more suspicious was that Jimmy was much better educated, also a strike against him.
He's the definition of being Christian; as opposed to those who earn the moniker C.I.N.O. (christian in name only).
Ronald Reagan was not a Christian. His wife plotted his schedule with the help of an astrologer.
I remember when Reagan announced his run for governor. Hope my dates are right. I was shocked that a candidate, an actor, who had no government experience or qualifications could run. And so naive even with high school and college history and civics. I grew up in a family of forever Democrats who were first generation Americans and my father was a veteran of WW2. They loved FDR. And voted for Stevenson. I wasn’t old enough to vote until the presidential election of 1972, after ratification of the 26th Amendment that lowered the voting age to 18. We had a McGovern sign on our lawn and no one destroyed it. We just debated on our front lawns, patios and driveways. Reagan: a rookie for California governor. And Nixon for president again in ‘72. A landslide. A crook. And with Reagan’s experience of dismantling the social services of our state, he was elected president in 1981. Of course a repub. Welcome to reality and life as an activist for social Justice, peace and anti racism. And the environment. Not ever ever ever a repug.
And we Californians should have known better. After former actor and song-and-dance man George Murphy's dismal stint as U.S. Senator, we thought Reagan would also be a flash in the pan. Boy, were we wrong.
Boy, did you nail us, but Reagan also had the propaganda master and the dirty tricks crew that demonized any program as socialism. And the masses of asses couldn’t wait to get to the trough. Sadly, the late 80’s should have told the fools that the rich had already gobbled up any largesse…
Yes, Frank Luntz, the "pollster" and master of twisted semantics.
Never forget Frank or Grover Norquist. Both aided and abetted the worst evil this country has ever seen. Love your “master of twisted semantics.” Fits like skin
Reagan, an actor in the white house. Can't help but see the comparison to Trump, basically a personality puppet created to do the bidding of these extreme so called republicans. The problem is even the puppeteers could not control his power hungry sociopathic ways. Trump's rise to office really was orchestrated in the same way as Reagan's. Interesting and scary.
Yes! If McConnell was smarter he'd allow someone easier to control. Like Cruz!
OMG Ted Cruz, true, but boy I worry about them electing his ass. He may be crazy and self serving but he's smart and knows how to work his base. I'm still hoping Cruz and all those wackos are indicted for something and put out of office for good.
In Reagan’s case, he became quite the political careerist, albeit also a puppet for many years of conservatives; early on he had some leftward-centrist orientation, then changed. Reagan had two 4-year terms elected (R) as Governor of California (1966, then again 1970), and survived a recall petition. He failed in bids for Republican presidential primaries in 1968 (Nixon) and 1976 (Ford).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Reagan
As opposed to TFG, a libertine doofus who probably could have cared less about politics or parties until he smelled blood of discontent in the water. In a way, TFG punked those establishment powers who put Reagan into power, when he thumbed his nose at the Rep. establishment after the 2016 R. primaries - wiped that whole stage off the map. Those never-T folks are still either wondering what hit them, or, studied the moves to refine them for 2022+2024 - a chilling prospect.
It doesn't help for people to talk about him being old. Joe is very smart and we could move ahead....if it wasn't for what Trump did while he was at the helm and now the Republicans that blame Joe for breathing!
Linda, Good roadmap with stops for repub presidents, one by one, (generally, maybe not all repubs but …) destroying possibilities to save this country, socially (human rights, civil rights, women’s rights) Voting rights, Gun safety Laws and economically and environmentally, the planet and the courts. A lot of damage credited to a political party voted in by the people in fair elections. I’m sure there will be arguments against my blaming one party but look at the facts of each administration. Responsibility.
200% true. He had great scripts from Peggy Noonan (who is still spewing lies) and great PR by Michael Deaver who wrapped him in a flag at a photo op a day. He was a better actor than I ever gave him credit for. I thought it was significant that Patty and Ron didn’t support him. “Reagan Democrats” were the traitors to me.
They were southern dems who followed Reagan for the most part, am I wrong?
A few news people, so I heard. Walter was gone and Rupert was in his ascendancy. As Jack Kemp said at a dinner in Jan 1981, honoring Rupert for his help for RR “Rupert Murdoch used the editorial page, the front page, and every other page Necessary to elect Ronald Reagan President.”
Yes. I see Peggy Noonan still writing her twisted view in the WSJ from time to time.
The worst president until at least George W., because unlike Buchanan or Pierce, he did evil effectively.
And Jon, next up is likely DeSantis - who will also "do evil effectively"! So whoever the Dems nominate? There better not be the same whining & refusal to vote from followers of candidates who DONT make the cut. They sure did a lot to accomplish Trump's ""win"". I have to wonder did any of those ever admit to themselves exactly how much they assisted the Repubs?
Don't forget the first President Johnson. Lincoln, like Obama, was bookended by terrible presidents.
Yes, I have loathed St Ray Gun since he came on the scene. I also blame him for ruining mental health and low income housing help....part of the problem now with homelessness. Then there was the union busting, all this in addition to what you have cited in your excellent post.
And don't forget all the "little wars" in Central America, trying to snuff out "Communism", which led to today's chaos and emigration in those countries.
Yes, I did overlook those and they are having huge impact now.
USA is still stamped on some weapons used in Central America today. Supplied by USA. We chose sides.
Add to that his earlier "accomplishment" of pointing the finger at purported communists when he was head of the Screen Actors Guild in Hollywood, and ruining careers and lives by doing so. Mr. Nice Guy - NOT!
And mass immigration and the 1986 amnesty, which helped enable the union busting.
Ronnie, the cheerleader in chief. Nancy ruled the roost and Annnenberg provided the ideology and $$$$$$!
There is much to Google (verb,) here!
Wow. Credit due, and a global megaphone to you Mike!! I never knew the facts, but I could smell it a mile away. Thank you for sharing what you know - good health and long life to you ...!!
Reagan and Gingrich. Plus sadly John Anderson was the spoiler in 1980 with too many foolish people annoyed with Jimmy Carter and voted for the so called Independent Repubican (I lived in that district in Illinois as a kid and now Adam Kitzginer carries on the tradtion of a moderate. sensible Repubican. ) Remidn folsk we got Reagan as our college aged kids cast theri first anieve vote agains JimmyCarter, the finests former President we ever had.
I voted for Anderson, the "independent" republican. He was actually quite thoughtful about issues, particularly energy, which was big back then. And I heard something to the effect that he had a lot more support than was being conveyed to voters. But from the benefit of 40-plus years of hindsight, I should have voted for Carter.
But this is one of the areas where ranked choice voting would do a huge amount of good. People could vote for the Andersons and Jill Steins and Naders as their first choices, and the Democratic candidate even as their last choice, and the Dem would still win.
Carter was one of the best human beings to occupy the White House, but he was a mediocre president.
Carter was fiscally responsible, did not start or fake the US into any stupid wars, began trying to get Americans on board for a future without oil by embracing solar and wind energy, and he role modeled good grace.
IF that is mediocre, I will take it all day long compared to any President since Carter.
You can plot the income disparity explosion right from the start of Reagonomics.
Yes, see, "The Man Who Sold The World: Ronald Reagan".
Yes, we bought the snakeoil, and the media that had formerly rode herd on Nixon just couldn't help loving telegenic Reagan, "The Great Communicator". A year after his death, 2.4 million Americans in the poll, organized by the Discovery Channel and AOL declared Former US President Ronald Reagan has been voted the "greatest American" of all time, edging out Lincoln. An insight into the man behind the image was released in 2019 of then Governor Reagan speaking in 1971 to then President Nixon about the Tanzanian delegation to the UN:
“ 'To watch that thing on television, as I did, to see those, those monkeys from those African countries – damn them, they’re still uncomfortable wearing shoes!' Reagan tells Nixon, who erupts in laughter."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jul/31/ronald-reagan-racist-recordings-nixon
Nice guy? Yes, when your window to the world is TV.
JL. Excellent post into Reagan's true character, which, was also displayed through the lie about the black woman in Chicago with 15 addresses collecting welfare.
Sadly, Reagans open racism is exactly why Americans loved him.
Yup. Reagan was a really bad man
Via the GE Luncheon circuit with the Pseudo Cowboy act. perfected on "20 Mule Team" literally selling soap for Boraxo.
And yet they lap! Republicans and so many others continue to worship the man. My staunch Democrat all his life father voted for him. An actor whose career in Hollywood was over, who pitched Boraxo on television was now the most powerful man in the world. What a cruel joke. And later came Trump??
And they still think he was wonderful....believen the lies!
Reagan's first Attack position was as President of the Screen Actor's Guild 1947-1952 ( don't
ask ). And, from there to a corporate Spokesperson ( pseudo-Westener ) for General Electric from tony Pacific Palisades with a "Reagan Ranch" with a view above Malibu Lake now a CA State Park near a huge "Blue Sky movie Backdrop" that caught my eye as a child - always a fake blue sky backdrop with Ronnie.
My father was a Goldwater Republican. I have always agreed on Reagan—thank you all for putting my thoughts into words!
Indeed....lest we forget
That was Reagan's symbolic promise to the nation. Forget that wimpy, honest man of peace you've suffered through for four years. Besides - he thinks too much.you know. He does that "pondering" thing before making important decisions. We Republicans don't do that
I will give "real" Americans back their power. God, Guns, and spilling the guts of the "other."
Sound familiar? Even those who have figured out Bulshitter 2.0 still worship Bulshitter 1.0.
And the "Miracle on Ice," with the goalie wearing the American flag afterward like a robe, showed how America would return to greatness. With the election of Ronald Reagan.
Pretty low standard for a miracle. Couldn't have anything to do with the strategy employed by Coach Herb Brooks. That whole story is worth a post itself.
Check out my new post. Thanks. Fred
Rarely has one event more strongly signified the truth than this1980 campaign starter. It set in motion a series of lies that make the one Trump perpetuates pale by comparison.
Well, except for the "big lie" that is bringing our democracy down.
Americans, Black and white, southern and northern, eager to defend the right of all
What’s new?
Americans to vote, planned to register Black people for the upcoming election. Because only 6.7% of Black Mississippians were registered, Mississippi became a focal point. Under Bob Moses, a New York City teacher who began voting work in Mississippi in 1961, volunteers set out. Just as they were getting underway, on June 21, three voting rights workers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, disappeared near Philadelphia, Mississippi.
What’s new in Mississippi? Alabama? Florida? Georgia? Tennesse? Kentucky?
The United States Republican Party? Our senate? Our Supreme Court? The Philippines? Russia? China? India? Egypt? Algeria? Saudi Arabia? Turkey? Hungary?
The human race?
Our gene needs development: brain surgery?
No!
Love thy neighbor. It’s simple.
To Tolerance....
“What are the significant differences among people?”
An essay topic - awarded to two rising juniors annually, they walk in to the college of their choice.
Study the annual winners of
The Eunice Helmkamp Maguire Award at U-High, The Laboratory School, The University of Chicago...
Funded by The Lewis Foundation for over 30 years.
What’s changed?
LBJ said “those who founded our country knew that freedom would be secure only if each generation fought to renew and enlarge its meaning..." Six 'Originalist' SCOTUS Justices disagree.
Yes, Bradley, they disagree, but their rampage must be stopped! Surely, there must be a way — after all, as Johnson goes on to say:
“… Americans of every race and color have died in battle to protect our freedom. Americans of every race and color have worked to build a nation of widening opportunities. Now our generation of Americans has been called on to continue the unending search for justice within our own borders.”
Isn’t it Biblical about the 7 Horsemen ? 6 Supreme Court Justices and a Republican President ?
Seven seals of the apocalypse and the first four were horsemen.
Thanks, I knew 7 was in there somewhere.🙃. They really scare me though.
Do you mean the 4 horsemen of the Apocalypse?
Yes. I couldn’t remember how it went. Ramona Boston got me squared away. I read that( Revelations ) 53 yrs ago 9 months PG.Scared me then, and our future scares me now. Not in 53 yrs have I feared the Supreme Court or Repubs like I I’m feeling now. I want this to be a bad dream and just wake up from it.
Resounding rhetoric, but they didn't know. LBJ, in 1964, had seen a lot more than they did, and the prophecy, all too accurate, was his.
"We've lost the South for a generation." Actually it's now two generations.
And in the meantime we have added so called “Jefferson State” and much of the Mid West to the equation. Why? Certainly Racism is at the top of the list along with “over regulation” by the government. In play are basic civil rights for all of us. Has anyone here ever been miffed by a sometimes seemingly ridiculous permitting process by their local government? There is usually a perfectly good reason for that tiresome and costly process. However the ordinary citizen interprets it as government over reach. At that point it is easy for the GOP to convince voters “the government is the problem.” At this point we must now all take a deep breath, choose our words carefully and keep in mind the consequences of our word and our deeds. We must also let our local governments know that their actions have far greater consequences that go way beyond our local area.
FH, TC,
Just an fyi about racism in the south and the west and the north.
I have lived in the South, the West (for a couple of summers) and in upstate NY at various points in my own migration since I left my Texas farm in 1978.
THE MOST RACIST and SEGREGATED place I have ever resided at was, at the time, in the upstate NY area. In those towns like Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse, segregation remains, today, fully in place and rigorously supported by the white community through radio station propaganda, parental upbringing, segregated schools etc.
Whites go to school in the suburbs. Blacks in the inner city. Period.
When I was 6 years old my school, in rural East Texas de-segregated. 1966.
But, in upstate NY schools TODAY?? Schools remain fully segregated. Period.
So, the most racist places in America are in the NORTH AND MISISSIPPI. We do not need to hide from this. We need to realize this fundamental aspect of America. Trump did not just get votes in the south and west. He won many of the white suburbs in the NORTH.
It is simply NOT the case that because Abe Lincoln ably conscripted a bunch of white northernern young men who, mostly, had never even seen a black man, in order to fight the civil war, that white people in the north are not racist. Not even close to true.
Mike, you get the Truth Teller Award of the year - and all time, in my book - thank you for saying out loud what so many have swallowed whole, and now are so stricken with soul constipation, they have no idea what, or how to say!!
I love the phrase soul constipation....I will be including that in my conversations. Thank you.
Kathleen,
Thanks. I am lucky. I had the "opportunity" to be mixed race. So, I get to see some aspects of America through two lenses, not just one.
I can honestly say, when I lived in rural East Texas I was treated better than when I moved to upstate NY, by the white community....
So true, Mike. I’ve lived in NYS for over 35 years, but when I was canvassing this year with a black colleague and she said she would not go to certain houses alone I couldn’t blame her. 45 miles north of NYC. The racism even here is stunning.
I honestly think open carry laws are designed to allow shooting armed black people.
Grace, yes. Connecticut is bad.
Absolutely true. I grew up in northern Indiana in Elkhart. The county seat, Goshen, which prided itself on its Christianity, would not allow blacks to stay over night and I think the same was true in Salem, Oregon, where I live now. Black people then lived in a thin line south of the railroad in Elkhart and that's the only place they were found in Elkhart County. I saw my first racism incident in Chicago when I was about 7 or so, but had no idea that black people lived in Elkhart. I had no black classmates, and then only a few, until I reached high school. I had a friend from southern Indiana (Bedford) tell me that the racism was so thick there, that you could cut it with a knife. Both sides of my family were racist and more since they disliked anyone who wasn't exactly like them. I heard plenty of racist remarks and other biases growing up. I still hear them from time to time. We have a black owned restaurant in downtown Salem and the owners have BLM signs and also a library inside. Of course, they have been the target of local wing nut cases. They are moving shortly into a larger space, so they do have lots of support and interesting good food as well. And a side note about why I hate the 4th...someone fairly close by popped off a couple firecrackers at around 5:30 am this morning.
Medford, Oregon (my home town) was one of the last cities to stop enforcement of the Sundown Laws. Eugene, Oregon (my current place of residence for the last 38 years) had an interesting situation in the past 15 years or so. There was a "Reynolds" St. in one of the subdivisions that grew up after WWII. Out on the west edge of town (south of where this subdivision is) there was a Black community, and a Christian Methodist Episcopal Church built by local families. Sam Reynolds was the pastor there. Upon his retirement, the congregation petitioned the city to name the street "Sam Reynolds Street." The city refused, allowing the name "Sam R." St. because it would be "too confusing" to have streets with such similar names. It wasn't until 2018 that the street was named "Sam Reynolds St."
Sidebar #1: there was an arson fire there in November, 2021; no suspects or arrests to date.
Sidebar #2: Quentin Reynolds is the pastor for the other predominantly Black church in town, Bethel Temple Church. This building was built in the past 15 years, also in west Eugene, replacing a smaller church in unincorporated Glenwood, which is a curious area between the cities of Eugene and Springfield that neither city particularly wanted until the past 5 years or so. Quentin is Sam Reynolds' son.
I am interested to read your analysis, Mike. I recently moved to the Rochester, NY area. Your observations go far in explaining my disappointment in the lack of progressive action among citizens here. Effort to address is what occupies my thoughts now.
Sue,
The good thing about Rochester is: Right now the weather is spectacular.
Enjoy!! And Welcome!!
All I know about Rochester NY is that some brave women challenged in court the almost universal law about women having to cover their breasts in public and won on the grounds of equal rights. Yep, women bold enuf can legally go top free in New York the same as men.
You are right, of course. The North is no exception. NY state is like so many states. Its urban areas vote liberal usually and are the most populated, so the states seem to carry those values. But the towns and rural districts of our states are more than full of segregationist concepts. In some cases they may be more entrenched than the South. And then there is Elise Stefanik!! Aaargh.
Oregon would like a seat at that New York racist table, but I guess we are, after all, in the west, which does have its racist heritage very well established and in many places intact.
Mike, you're totally correct. A good friend, who grew up in upstate NY but has lived in Georgia for years, is constantly badgered by her cousins who live there with the worst right wing hate mail, although they know that she's a Democrat, and not a racist. I grew up in suburban Boston, and although I've lived in suburban Atlanta for over 50 years, many people I knew as a child have revealed themselves as shameless racists. I've ended these relationships because of their disgusting views. There's plenty of racism to go around in this country, but the North needn't point fingers at the South, since they have done little to remediate their own shameful filth.
Take a look at the facts folks, Following is the data that backs up Mike's assertion that '...in upstate NY schools TODAY?? Schools remain fully segregated. Period.'
'Report Shows School Segregation in New York Remains Worst in Nation'
Date Published: June 10, 2021
'A new report from the Civil Rights Project finds that New York retains its place as the most segregated state for black students, and second most segregated for Latino students, trailing only California. The report also makes clear that New York is experiencing an acceleration of demographic changes outlined in the earlier 2014 report. White students are no longer the state’s majority group as they were in 2010. the proportion of Asian students increasing sharply to more than 17% in 2018, and Latino students becoming the largest racial/ethnic group, from 35% in 1990 to 41% in 2018. Conversely, there has been a significant decline in the black student population. The new research also examines the expansion of school choice and charter schools and how they may have contributed to the continued segregation of the city’s schools. The research underscores that many in New York City are engaged in important efforts to integrate schools and there are a significant number of schools showing signs of reduced segregation.'
https://www.civilrightsproject.ucla.edu/news/press-releases/2021-press-releases/report-shows-school-segregation-in-new-york-remains-worst-in-nation
'A new study of school segregation shows public school districts across the Syracuse metro area are the 13th most segregated by race in the country. The Century Foundation just published new data showing the Syracuse area just behind Chicago-Evanston, Illinois and just ahead of Flint, Michigan. Newark, New Jersey and Gary, Indiana lead the list for most segregated when comparing White to Black students.'
'The study compares 200 schools that educate more than 100,000 students across Onondaga, Oswego and Madison Counties. 93.7% of the segregation is seen when comparing public school districts to each other. The highest measurement of this Segregation Index comes when a school has either all White or all Black students.'
'The Rochester area ranks 8th. The Albany-Schenectady metro area ranks 22nd in segregation between public school districts nationally.
We have previously reported on the segregation of schools in Syracuse and Onondaga County in our series of reports on The Map. "Syracuse is like many other cities in the northeast that have maintained segregation by housing, by ethnicity as we see the growth of suburbs that have become whiter and more distant from the city," explained Dr. George Theoharis of Syracuse University. "Syracuse is more segregated than it was because of issues of white flight and economic disparity. "
'Our reporting on The Map highlights the racial makeup and failing performance of Dr. Martin Luther King School in Syracuse. Attending the Dr. King school today, 121 Black students, eleven Hispanic, one Native-American, six multi-racial and one white child. Statewide, the average performance for elementary schools on English Language Arts tests for 3rd and 4th grades in 52% proficient. At Dr. King school, the ELA proficiency is 3%. Only 3 of 121 Black students scored proficient on the test, according to the most recent state data. For more than a decade, New York State labeled Dr. George Theoharis of Syracuse University. "Syracuse is more segregated than it was because of issues of white flight and economic disparity. "
https://cnycentral.com/news/the-map-segregated-syracuse/schools-across-syracuse-area-13th-most-segregated-by-race-in-the-nation
Thanks Fern. Indeed, I would have done well to post a link to this since I was aware of it some time back, but forgot.
However, mostly, I was writing my own lived experience in comparison between Texas and NY.
My own live experience is vastly different between Texas and NY with Texas experience having been BETTER than my experience in NY.
Trailing only CA! I wouldn't have guessed that!
Agree. Attitudes and hate are owned by mankind and carried out in like lyrics accompanied with regional and local melodies. Or, in different languages and imbedded in culture and our traditions. The hope of our grand experiment is to alter attitudes and lyrics, not the distinctive melodies, cultures, or traditions. Sadly, I'm not sure the racism of my childhood neighborhood in NW Chicago is much different now, except for which nationalities are direct and indirect objects of the attitudes.
The racial incident I referred to at age seven was in Chicago, but further south. A black family was trying to move into a neighborhood. Much later on I did my Peace Corps training in south Chicago at George Williams College under the auspices of Roosevelt University in the middle sixties. That was quite an adventure. I did some student teaching at Wendall Phillips High School during that time. Some somewhat scary happenings, but the one that makes me smile is this one. We had the students on a field trip to the Field Museum. There were some Amish nearby and one of the students observed to me: "Look, Pilgrims".
Applies to many, many small towns as well, where nepotism is just a business model. Just follow the map of the race riots, goes right through the Midwest.
I believe it, sometimes it takes familiarity to have empathy. IF one hadn’t been actively indoctrinated…
❤️
Please excuse the spelling and grammatical errors in my above comment
I guessed easily what a deep breat was - but look at those three dots after "Collapse" - click on them and it will say "edit". You can go in and fix whatever needs fixing, even hours later, then save. That's only on your own post, of course, you can't alter anything posted by someone else!
Who knew? Thank You
Going on for 3 generations........ if not 4 centuries
Correct. 3/5ths of a person to the 'Southern strategy' to election deniers to sedition.
I never knew that until recently . At the same time white men who were allowed to Vote, lots of them signed with an X.So many couldn’t read or write. Not even their own name.
Fast forward to July 1, 2022 in the 5-way House Primary in Wyoming, the Election Denier leads by 30 points; Liz Cheney tells the voters:"The truth matters".
I think both are true; in the immediate case (and as articulated by LBJ), easily 3 generations as the 4th comes to voting age. In practice, over four centuries, especially when you fold in the second edge of the sword that created America as a dominant country in a short amount of time, that of Indigenous Genocide as it coupled with Black enslavement.
the latter.
I’ve lived. In the South for 63 yrs. It’s still as Racist and has been as it was in 64 .Recently I called about a service I needed. The guy came to review my needs. He then asked if I minded a Black person coming to my house. I did not go with that service. No I don’t mind but I could not believe he asked !
What the service was actually doing was protecting the Black worker. I was asked that question in 2012 when my 88 year old father needed help from caregivers. Knowing him as I did I told the service that we were not going to put someone in a position to be disrespected. My mother was a totally different story.
I was not raised (in NC) to hate blacks, but the ‘superior attitude’ crept in through the cracks and crannies. I played with the young child of the black woman who helped my mama with washing and other chores since she worked her whole adult life in hosiery mills, while tending to her eight children. I didn’t go to school or church with Rosalee, so segregation was alive and well. But my parents respect for Rosie and her hard life must have rubbed off on me at a very young age. BTW, in the assisted living facility where I live, I am witness to a couple of arrogant residents disrespecting the aides and techs on occasion. Racism is often proud, and at the same time, denied. Quite a feat…
Maybe ? But I have had times before that and he was the first ever to ask.All I care about is their skills and a Criminal Background check no matter who you send. I was raised up North.
Black folks ok, racists not!
Get the f^** out of my house?
I knew right off that the better part of what he was charging wasn’t going to them either. He was driving an Audi
TC LBJ, a southerner who became a lukewarm proponent of civil rights in pushing for a moderate civil rights bill under President Ike in 1957, became the most important civil rights president in history (doubling down on Lincoln’s emancipation) in 1964/65.
This former ‘master of the Senate’ took a n unprecedented 66-day Senate filibuster before moving the civil rights bill onward. With this and the 1965 civil rights bill [which have been weakened by recent Supreme Courts] LBJ was a remarkable civil rights hero, while reflecting that this would cost the Democrats the South for a generation.
In fact, racism is a major plank in the current Trump world that is swathed in right-kind-of-whitism.
Keith we were told when Kennedy was killed that the Warren Report would be unsealed in 50 yrs. To date it has not. We have gotten a ‘ Nugget ‘ or 2 in all these yrs past. Why won’t they unseal it ? It will be 60 yrs next yr
https://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report
Yes, we got the Public Report. But they stated at the time that basically not all could be revealed and at the 50yr mark what was NOT for Public to know would be.It’s sealed under lock and key. George HW Bush was the director of the CIA at the time.
Thank you Bradley for reminding us of LBJ and the Civil Rights Law of 1964, which was at the center of today's Letter.
Here we are a day before, July 4th, 2022, the day known as Independence Day. It will be the country’s 246 birthday. Today’s Letter reminds us of the Summer 1964, known as ‘Freedom Summer’.
‘Americans, Black and white, southern, and northern, eager to defend the right of all Americans to vote, planned to register Black people for the upcoming election. Because only 6.7% of Black Mississippians were registered, Mississippi became a focal point.’ (Letter)
‘Freedom Summer” that was 58 years ago. ‘The House of Representatives had been considering a civil rights bill since June 1963 …’ ‘The House passed the bill on February 10 and sent it on to the Senate, where everyone knew the southern segregationists would not give up easily.’
‘The head of the southern bloc, Richard Russell (D-GA), said: “We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our states.” (Letter) What’s easy…certainly not passing a civil right bill in the United States America. BUT, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law on July 2. THAT WAS 58 YEARS AGO!
‘…a landmark civil rights and labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex,[a] and national origin. It prohibits unequal application of voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools and public accommodations, and employment discrimination. The act "remains one of the most significant legislative achievements in American history". (Wikipedia)
'Here we are a day before, July 4th, 2022, the day known as Independence Day.
‘This year, state lawmakers, who spent 2021 passing laws that made it harder to vote, have focused more intently on election interference, passing nine laws that could lead to tampering with how elections are run and how results are determined.’
‘Election interference laws do two primary things. They open the door to partisan interference in elections, or they threaten the people and processes that make elections work. In many cases, these efforts are being justified as measures to combat baseless claims of widespread voter fraud and a stolen 2020 election.’
‘Between January 1 and May 4, six state legislatures — Alabama, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma — have passed nine election interference laws. As of May 4, at least 17 such bills introduced this year are still moving through five state legislatures. Moving bills are those that have passed at least one chamber of the state legislature or have had some sort of committee action (e.g., a hearing since the beginning of 2022, an amendment, or a committee vote). In total, lawmakers in 27 states have proposed at least 148 election interference bills.’ (BrennanCenterforJustice) See link below.
Today’s Letter has put our country’s Independence Day, in perspective. Hotdogs and American flags will not be foremost on the minds of many Americans. These are the words of President Johnson in celebration of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
“The purpose of the law is simple. It does not restrict the freedom of any American, so long as he respects the rights of others. It does not give special treatment to any citizen…. It does say that…those who are equal before God shall now also be equal in the polling booths, in the classrooms, in the factories, and in hotels, restaurants, movie theaters, and other places that provide service to the public.”
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/voting-laws-roundup-march-2021
I'm proud to say that in an hour I will join a two-year faithful BLM vigil which I do almost every Sunday. It's interesting that it is located beside (and sponsored by)an Episcopal church which is so white, but has a Black woman Bishop. One small step for humankind...most all passing cars honk and wish us well, but of course there are the occasional middle fingers.
And as if like the Movie “ Back To The Future “ Women of all races and Black Americans are being Discriminated against in plain site.Our new name will be “ America The Republican Kingdom “.Now I know why they spent so much time hanging out with Dictators.
'The difference between a democracy and a dictatorship is that in a democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting. '
Charles Bukowski
Thanks, Fern. So many of our freedoms are unraveling now.
And thanks for the link to the Brennan Center for Justice, which reminded me I haven't made a contribution yet this year.
Thank you, Mim. I believed that HCR's historical references to 'Freedom Summer', LBJ's determination to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the powerful intransigence toward civil rights legislation by the Southern states pointed to comparing then with now. I would suggest that a comparison of presidential leadership than and now may also be noted. It will take a great deal more activism on the part of citizens to promote our rights to privacy, equality, protection of fair and free elections, the regulation of business and of the environment as well as knowledge of who the conservative, right-wing Justices on the Supreme Court are serving if we are to stop the USA's descent to autocracy.
Problem is, Fern, too many citizens couldn't give a hoot about being politically active. They are too self-involved to care about others and what the effect policies and rulings have on all of us. Many, I've heard, are so disinterested they haven't even been watching or reading about the Jan. 6 hearings. Ostriches with their heads in the sand, they're more concerned about inflation and the price of gasoline.
Mim, Your response indicates the true 'elephant' in the room. It's the American people, but I would not settle on that. Perhaps, it is a 'lazy' way out. Let's not rest on that premise.
Eyes need to be opened. Rights are being being stripped, free and fair elections are in serious jeopardy...Earth is Endangered: 'There are now 41,415 species on the IUCN Red List, and 16,306 of them are endangered species threatened with extinction. This is up from 16,118 last year. This includes both endangered animals and endangered plants. The species endangered include one in four mammals, one in eight birds, one third of all amphibians and 70% of the world’s assessed plants on the 2007 IUCN Red List are in jeopardy of extinction'.
All Americans, whether they care about the survival of earth, plants, animals, the air, the water, each other, Democracy … are in terrible trouble. Eyes, minds and hearts need to be opened.
Fern, as a supporter of environmental organizations for many, many decades, I know the peril species are in, but just this week Biden has broached the possibility of offshore drilling again, which would endanger species, including our own, because the world is doing nowhere near enough to get a handle on climate control. We should have had "sapiens" taken out of our binomial name a long time ago.
I don't suppose it has anything to do with the oligarchy sqeezing blood out of us ex-middle class turnips? When one has to consentrate so much of ones energy one finding the next meal, politics loses priority.
...and a rise in population from 2 billion to 8 billion + - since the birth control pill was invented...
So one can be “unalterably opposed” to any form of discrimination, but not willing to end the damn filibuster so laws can be passed, or at least brought to a vote. They should at least be forced to actually filibuster IN PERSON!!
I first became aware of Nancy Pelosi two or three years ago when she filibustered, alone, for something like eight hours, in very high heels. And won.
My gast is flabbered
Thanks for the laugh, Jeri! Pelosi is still tough in her 80s.
Hear hear!!! And not in teams, either. They should have to do it like Jimmy Stewart in *Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.* I know the movie isn’t strictly accurate, but damn it, the threat of a filibuster should be called out.
I was thinking that also.
Being against a filibuster now is just fine but how many will be glad for the filibuster if Democrats do as badly this November as the polls suggest?
I have no doubt that if the Republicans take the Senate, they will expand, contract, or remove the filibuster in any way that suits their purpose. Refusing to change the filibuster because Republicans might abuse it only guarantees that the Democrats can't do anything at all in the five minutes they have left to do anything at all. Frankly, I'm tired of the Democrats tying their own hands behind their backs and blaming it on fear of what Republicans will do. This is the very reason Republicans have been able to get where they are today.
Brava, Gail. It does seem we have only five minutes left, and yet...
Concur.
But can't the Republicans, if they win, end the filibuster in that case, when it no longer serves them?
Precisely. If the Rs have a Senate majority, McTurtle will blow up the filibuster faster than you can say filibuster, and pass every odious bill he can. Bet on it!
And then reinstate it as soon as their dirty work is done, so it will still be there for the Democrats to stumble over, should they win again.
Bingo.
He had a different idea of what discrimination meant and of who it applied to. He was indeed an originalist in the sense of the 18th C when people were evidently white, european, male, wealthy and in power.....no discrimination against them by those who were just there to serve them...... of course.
Yes! To actually put your mouth where your money is!
And show up for the damn vote! It should be a % of senators that vote not a number like 60. If 80 vote, then 60% of that should be the filibuster number. They should be forced to declare on important issues.
I mean it is their job, we voted for them to do their job! This not voting and refusing to take up hard legislation - not doing your job! I am sick and tired of these ultra white men and some women who think their job is to be shock jocks and not even sit down at a table and discuss making laws. Maybe the Supreme Court is using the word originalist to mean legislation for the past 50 years because tbh SCOTUS has been having to interpret a lot coming from Congress since they are leaving a lot out of their legislation. Heck we don’t even have an equal rights bill and it is 2022.
How many years has the ERA been hanging out there? Not even mentioned now (by our sainted representatives).
I don't believe we should write off the civil rights era as a bust. It was an era when ordinary people found courage and inspiration to face down a vicious racist system that had been in place for hundreds of years. Every generation has its own challenges. This is another moment when we must all stand together against another vicious enemy that has vowed to erase the dream of American. This must be another freedom summer!
Now, that was the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, if I remember rightly. We thought we'd changed the world forever.
Yes , we did believe that and I thought our struggles with racism would end in a generation, how wrong I was. We may even see a state’s rights agenda that may try to reestablish some form of segregation. Unbelievable , yet now possible. Lots of folks never got over school desegregation in 1954 and later the civil rights legislation.
Joseph, A Paul Krugman opinion in the NYT connects with your comment.
Paul Krugman, opinion NYT about Republican Party and extremism
“And because G.O.P. extremism is fed by resentment against the very things that, as I see it, truly make America great — our diversity, our tolerance for difference — it cannot be appeased or compromised with. It can only be defeated.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/27/opinion/republicans-extreme-abortion.html?referringSource=articleShare
I agree! but the heart icon would not take my 'vote', so I'm typing my support
Same here, “the very things that make America great,” are on the chopping block. Now thanks to the MAGAts who have made a joke of What has made America great.
❤️
It does seem to be broken. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.
The heart or the politics? The heart works with a little play, but yes, isn’t the political broken, but maybe repairable? I’m trying to have hope. Trying.
♥️
Krugman wonders why the G.O.P. has become an extremist, anti-democratic party. He looks to history for precedents, and he settles on the KKK of the 1920s (as explained in Linda Gordon's 2017 book, "The Second Coming of the KKK: The Klu Klux Klan of the 1920s and the American Political Tradition") as being most similar in genesis: "a "politics of resentment" driven by the backlash of white, rural and small-town Americans against a changing nation. The K.K.K. hated immigrants and “urban elites”; it was characterized by “suspicion of science” and “a larger anti-intellectualism.”
Thanks Irene. We cannot allow our country to stay in reverse gear. Unpacking SCOTUS is not only desirable , but essential. We need a Democratic Party majority but not with those such as Manchin and Sinema. Meanwhile , we are waiting and waiting for DOJ to do what needs to be done. Where are the indictments of the White House ring of traitors?
We need a government that works for ordinary American in the 21st century. People buy a house in their preferred location, then they remodel it to meet how a family lives today. Our government could use some remodeling. 13-15 judges on the Supreme Court would be better than 9. Nine is a small number whose majority has been manipulated to be the best court money can buy. Anyone who thinks the current group has not been bought is foolish and naive.
We are all asking those questions. “When?” And more worrisome “how and IF?”
The same ugliness keeps raising its head. Evil NEVER goes away, it just slinks out of sight for a while.
Yes. I sometimes think our Republican friends have become successful by believing that how they win is of lesser and lesser importance. Method success protects the achieved evil that comes to be believed good as so many of US say it is so with convincing rhetoric. A cautionary fable perchance for those of us fighting for the lost cause, the perfect, and the idea locked up in the soundproof room where our ideology is applauded.
Agree. But did you watch HCR’s video of 6/30? She estimates we have only two years to effect meaningful legislative change. With Congress as it is, and, worse, as it may become after the midterms, I can’t feel optimistic. I’m writing frequently to my senators and representative, but that’s sort of preaching to the choir since they’re all Democrats. I send money every month to Fair Fight and to candidates that I think/hope may have a chance in the midterms, but my contributions are nothing compared with what the GOP is able to rake in from its mega donors. In short, I feel hopeless, but still determined to do what I can. BTW, I lived in the segregated South, but when I moved to Chicago in 1979, I immediately discovered that it was even more segregated and racist than Chapel Hill, NC.
I read the day after R-V-W the DNC was donated 80 mil. Don’t despair.
I hope they use it for effective messaging. God knows, republicans have given them enough ammunition
79K women had Abortions in FL last yr. They couldn’t have all been Dem’s.And I know they are not all Black Americans
MarciaRockvegas -- "79K women had Abortions in FL last yr."
https://www.abort73.com/abortion_facts/states/florida/
I prefer to donate to individual candidates and Fair Fight. Sometimes to Democratic Attorneys General. What do you think?
I think what you can afford should be spread around. It didn’t state who or where the donations went to. The FL guy, not TFG has bragged that his Campaign alone has taken in over a Million.Yrs ago I read back in the 1950’s there were about 200 Lobbyist. Today, 10k -15 K maybe more since my last search of them. We have lots of Millionaires now. 750 there abouts Billionaires and Trillionairs. How much Democracy can all of us afford ?
R-V-W?
Roe Versus Wade
Ah. Thanks.
Friends from Chicago spoke of their surprise at the number of mixed couples we have here in France, saying you'd never see that in their city...
We in turn are surprised by many apparent obsessions in American society with ideas that have gotten lodged in people's heads; fixed ideas about things like features and skin color ("race") or "gender"... or "rugged individualism" -- commonly expressed as thoroughgoing conformism. Ideas that solidify into tumors. All accompanied by blind collective belief, typically in things that are radically incompatible.
Chapel Hill has been a bastion of enlightenment, relatively speaking.
Ha! Good ol' Apple Chill. ;) I attended graduate school there, many decades ago. I remember when Jesse Helms suggested building a fence around Chapel Hill.
OMG, Jesse Helms—I’d forgotten about the fence, but he and his ilk certainly thought the place was full of communists.
Agree! Took them an awfully long time to get rid of Silent Sam (confederate soldier statue) though.
It's not preaching to the choir, Joanna, it's giving your legislators the stats they need to prove this is an issue their constituents care about. You also provide fresh language for them to articulate the case for legislation. My personal goal is to eradicate 'at the end of the day' or 'the American people want' (that one is Mitch's). Fresh language, original perspectives on issues, wake people up.
Thank you—I need courage and hope, and this helps.
Yes! Yes! Yes! We Can Do This!!! 💪🏽❤️🇺🇸
Yes, there were great stirrings in the Sixties and Seventies. A generation later, I had an idealistic friend who'd wax lyrical about "The New Paradigm"... He couldn't see that he was waving a red rag before the Minotaur...
'The Minotaur, Ancient Greek Mythology, is a mythical creature portrayed during classical antiquity with the head and tail of a bull and the body of a man or, as described by Roman poet Ovid, a being "part man and part bull". 'The Minotaur was eventually killed by the Athenian hero Theseus.'
"Minotaur" was originally a proper noun in reference to this mythical figure. That is, there was only the one Minotaur. In contrast, the use of "minotaur" as a common noun to refer to members of a generic "species" of bull-headed creatures developed much later, in 20th-century fantasy genre fiction.' It is not difficult to guess the 'species' Peter was referring to in his comment. I don't see a 'Theseus' hanging around to knock our 'minotaur' off.
'A scientific interpretation also exists. Citing early descriptions of the minotaur by Callimachus as being entirely focused on the "cruel bellowing" it made from its underground labyrinth and the extensive tectonic activity in the region, Science journalist Matt Kaplan has theorised that the myth may well stem from geology. He points out that carbon dating of marine fossils attached to boulders that were ejected from the ocean by ancient tsunamis indicates the region was tectonically very active during the years when the minotaur myth first appeared.' (Wikipedia)
As usual, Peter, you're on something, but I for one will not return to Greek Mythology for more insight concerning America's problems. It would not have occurred to me to spend a few minutes on the minotaur but for you. Am I glad I did? I'll take the 5th.
Look at what I regard as Picasso's masterpiece, the big Minotauromachy etching from 1935 -- go to the MOMA site. (Sorry, can't help you directly, my computer's down...)
This says more than half-dead terms like "Reaction" or "the Patriarchy" when it comes to speaking of the Beast of our times...
I found Picasso's Minotauromachy etching right away. You were on to something! I am happy to a followed your lead. This etching must be seen face to face. It is a multilayered work appearing to move from the inside. Thank you, Peter.
Going out to register voters next week in fact.
Holy cow once again. I was in high school for most of the time you have written about here. I was a strong student and went on to a great university, and, once again, you have taught me more in this essay about my own life than I knew yesterday. With ongoing appreciation to you. Time off I hope.
This is where we are today, lots of folks not paying attention, and not believing they need to, and not voting.
Worse, the airwaves and "news" is faux. THIS is the time to get out the vote, register nonvoters, raise some consciousness! Join your local Democrat club, lend a hand.
Wife and I are marching with county Democrats tomorrow in our July 4 parade.
Yesterday, I knocked on doors of registered independent voters in working class neighborhood, and found three conservative households who will vote straight "D" this autumn
And I think I found three, or maybe four, families wanting Democratic Party yard signs!
This is encouraging! Thanks for your hard work.
Thank you!
I have lived through all of this, but I keep learning
I was eleven in 1964 and grew up in Virginia, the bastion of *Massive Resistance.* My parents were deep-dyed Republicans and segregationists. My county of Culpeper would not integrate our schools for two more years. We watched the news every evening, and I remember all these events, tho thru the lens of my young understanding. When I read President Johnson’s words I can hear his voice. Where is an LBJ today? I am married to a trump loyalist and my heart is torn every day for my country. My actions are very limited, but I can contact my senators, Rubio and Scott, and my representative, Daniel Webster. But what is the most effective way? I barraged them with email when Ukraine was invaded, with no response beyond the automatic ones. What can I do better?
A good friend recently told me that she had signed up for a project called “Vote Forward”. She signed up to write and send letters to 20 people in key states. The letters simply encourage people to vote. No soliciting votes for a specific candidate; nor for a specific political party or issue. She understands this has already shown to increase voter turn out. You can sign up for however many you wish to send. I assume the project sends you a list of names with addresses and probably a sample letter. I assume you can find Vote Forward by googling it. Definitely a force for the good! Best of luck!
Thank you so much. My husband is my best friend; we’ll have been married for 46yrs in December and I can’t give up on him. I was a loyal GOP wife until TFG. And I feel so helpless and angry. I appreciate this idea.
Well, swell! Glad I can pass along a little medicine. A best friend is the best! Precious enough you can practice loving him and loving your own authenticity and independent spirit at the same time. Khalil Gibran in his Book The Prophet in the chapter in On Marriage who advises:”Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts. And stand together yet not too near together: For the pillars of the temple stand apart, And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.”
Gibran is inspiring from start to finish.
Profound counsel, Selina…for all of us.
My husband loved Khalil Gibran before his dementia overtook reason. So much wisdom in “The Prophet.”
How beautiful - thank you 🙏
You are welcome, Suzanne Crockett. Your openness and genuineness have touched many of us and opened the door to the wisdom and resources abiding in the community - resources all of us can now access - Vote Forward and The States Project. Together we stand. In gratitude.
You’re very kind
Thank you for posting Gibran’s very practical marriage counsel. ❤️
I had to go up on the web and discover what TFG meant. Good for you for standing up for principled behavior. I admire you for your steadfast standing up for your beliefs.
And loyalty.
Thank you, Anne-Louise. You lift my heart.
Thank you, Alice. That means a lot.
Some people even opt for lowercasing the abbreviation, for powerfully symbolic reasons: tfg
In my mind, I prefer a different meaning for the "f"
🦅
Yep. I usually just use dt, to minimize him as much as possible.
https://votesaveamerica.com/
We have done 1000s of those Vote Forward letters: my simple statement is Your Vote is your Voice. Please vote.
I wrote 1200 Vote Forward letters in 2020 and I’m well on my way to doing it again. As I understand it, the letters go to registered Democrats who haven’t voted recently. Urge them to pay attention and vote. Worth every penny in my opinion.
Thanks for the suggestion, Selina! I found their website. BTW, their page reminds volunteers that forever stamps will go up to 60 cents on July 10. Their link:
https://votefwd.org/
YES! VOTE FORWARD! Also, postcards! The price of a stamp, or several hundred of them, is worth the opportunity to inform, change minds, and GOTV. Also, texting; NextGen makes it easy. ResistBot; check out Chop Wood Carry Water. As someone earlier wrote, "Let's Roll"
Yes, I have done this. Your information is accurate. It is a template letter, but there is a space for a personal message regarding why voting is important to you
Also https://www.turnoutpac.org/order-postcards/
Vote for Val Demings.
For sure!!! True Blue - Vote Blue!!
Or donate to her cause if you can't vote!
Suzanne,
I’m sorry for you and your situation. We left North FL after thirty-one years and returned to MA here we’d always maintained a place for a last stand. We feared that FL would become a difficult place to live in as it transitions into DeSantisland and Trump’s hide-out. I have a brother who is living in SC, and has become a fantasyland religious fundamentalist and a yes-but Trump follower. These are terrible times for thinking and caring people, and I wish you well. Be careful and preserve your friendships to stay sane and positive. Good luck.
My best friend’s husband cowed her into the insanity. And she is way smarter. But he has his bluff in on the whole family. Stand firm, women. BTW, I lost her as best friend, another reason to hate tfg
Thank you, Jeri. tfg has a lot to answer for when he gets to hell.
Thank you, J.P. We’ve only lived here since. November 2021, so all my friends are online now. A small group on FB Messenger, an FB page called “Trump Bashing Bishes” that my husband can’t see, and of course Dr. Richardson and y’all. The people here help me know I’m not alone.
I've lived in Florida since 1987. Let me know how I can help.
You are brave and smart. Hugs to you!
Thank you, Becky, you are very kind.
Your concerns were well founded.
https://wapo.st/3OX000C
My parents were on opposite ends of the spectrum. I wondered how they could stay together. Hard to live with someone so rabid about some issues and concepts that you can’t talk with them about current events. Sadly I Find myself in somewhat of the same situation. Politics and current events can be difficult to share.
Truth. We watched the Jan 6 insurrection together, on Fox, from the middle of dt’s speech until the end of that awful day. And we didn’t see it the same way. My heart is still broken.
We can’t/don’t watch the news together. Mostly I don’t want to know what he thinks about some things. Our birth siblings are on opposite ends of spectrum. I was oblivious about that when we met. We share a lot of good but I wish we could talk about a lot of these issues. I am grateful for my siblings and friends and HCR who helps me be informed.
❤️
That's when you find out what lies closest to the bone.
Oh Suzanne! I admire you. Don't give up! Keep hammering away, like a woodpecker. They know, even if they haven't the guts to reply. Keep it going. P.S. I've just read Selina's reply to you. Good!!!
Suzanne, Each action you’ve done is significant!
Jessica Craven’s free newsletter makes it easy:
https://chopwoodcarrywaterdailyactions.substack.com/
Write to the Orlando Sentinel. They often publish letters from constituents outside Orange County.
https://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/os-submit-letter-to-the-editor-htmlstory.html
Sign up for FL Rep Anna Eskamani’s emails. She travels to adjoining counties fighting for all Dems.
https://annaforflorida.com/
💙
Join with others. Find a group that is working to perhaps flip your state legislature from red to blue . I suggest THE STATES PROJECT. There are others but this group has giving circles you can join and meet other people. There are groups who write post cards and knock on doors. Seek out others to work with to magnify your impact. Good luck.
Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island!!
Jon Ossoff too!!
Suzanne, see my comment above about walking a local neighborhood for your county Democratic Party group ....
I hear you and share your frustration.
Heather, this is breathtaking. I am reminded of that summer, I was 15 and wanted to go to Mississippi. My mother put her foot down and told me to picket the bank on the corner where we lived in NYC and who refused Black families mortgages. “I’m not letting some southern sheriff kill you!” And then, the three civil rights workers were murdered. I will never get over it…
The Andrew Goodman foundation was established to fight for voting rights by his family and friends. They are working on the 30million young people 18-30 year olds who don't know diddlysquat about the people who died for the right to vote and don't care enough to inform themselves and vote.
Now their civil rights are being systematically stripped away and one day their right to marry whom they want, the right for an abortion after they were careless, their right to vote will have been stripped away and then their rights might make a difference but it is too late. KNOW SOMEONE LIKE THAT.
Talk to him/her and explain what happened in Germany in the 1920s.... and then they came for you.....etc. .
REGISTER THEM AND LEAD THEM TO THE BALLOT BOX. ASK THEM TO READ Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning. By: Timothy Snyder.
My thoughts, exactly!
This touched me so much. I have tears because we are at another turning point as a nation. It is a reminder that the people can demand change, demand justice. I have already been to two prochoice marches. I think it is time for our nation to speak up, before it is too late, to save democracy. The Supreme Court has too much power. We have a narrow window to come together before we lose our freedom. We must speak up loudly and boldly. Your essay is a strong reminder of the pain our country has faced and the turning point when people demand justice and a strong leader fought for that justice. Please do not quit writing. Your writing is a constant inspiration.
My family moved to Atlanta in June of ‘64 the day I graduated from HS near Portland OR, while I was born and raised in Detroit I spent my HS years in the west, I had a front row seat to the integration of the Deep South, moving here was like moving to another planet. I have lived and worked from one end of this country to another. I live in the South today because this is where my parents spent their last days, and I wanted to be near them as well as my extended family who for the most part live here. Georgia is changing, slowly but it is changing, a lot of that change is because of people like me that were raised elsewhere and now live here. Having a highly educated population, while it doesn’t guarantee evolution, has certainly helped Georgia become bluer. The mid-terms this fall and the general in 2 years are going to determine if we continue to have a country that we will want to live in. Stay tuned, it looks like it’s going to be close.
Florida is a retirement magnet for North so I am surprised it has remained red. .
Same, Frank. Long before we moved here 9 months ago, to support divorced son and 3yo grandson, I read that Florida is divided into three parts - Lower Alabama, God’s Waiting Room (where we live) and Northern Havana. People in north Florida are going to be red for a while, and south Florida Hispanics have been told that Democrats are socialists.
Suzanne, there is one more part in Florida....the I-4 corridor which cuts across the State and includes East Central Florida. It is not the Villages, nor is it Havana North, but it IS almost 25% Hispanic/ Latino and growing. Someone else pointed you to Anna Eskamani, who is wonderful. And, of course, Val Demings is from Central Florida and running for US Senate against Marco Rubio. Lots to support here, despite the MAGA presence. Not much I can add to Selena's beautiful message except to say connect your energy to that which gives you hope; don't waste it on trying to change those who refuse to listen. You are not alone in Florida. We are out here and with you in spirit. Remember that when things get tough. You do have a tribe!!
I have 2 sisters and a brother in law who live in Florida and reliably vote blue.
Gerrymandering? Cheating ex-felons of their lawful right to vote? Seems fishy to me that the state is so red.
I do not usually write comments but as I read Heather's analysis it energizes me to write something and I have done so twice before this comment. Today in history and during the protests against the war in Viet Nam was a time when America was trying to live up to the idea of liberty and justice for all. The nomination and defeat of Goldwater was the beginning of the movement which has taken hold today and instead of just a few states it seems to be growing around the country and is based, for the most part, on lies and deception. Until recently we had a government with checks and balances with the Supreme Court holding the needle steady for those freedoms. It now seems, through the help of the Republican Senate, the Court has decided to join those seeking to divide the country and to take away, not only personal rights, but also the ability for our nation to protect the planet and who knows what else is on the chopping block. It is now up to us to change the bend of time and right the ship. Get out and work to register and get people to vote and spread the word of Heather Cox Richardson and her logic.
Richard,
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
HCR for President!
Tonight we worship women. As one wise subject said, her pal said dryly, men have not been doing all that well of late.
Women would do for a few decades... there is a lot to unscramble... and we all know it.
Liz Cheney, no doubt dealing quietly with the sins of her father, W and the rest of the Bush family, has at last stood tall and she deserves our respect, and should be reelected and elevated. Wyoming, you know what to do... start by apologising.
Casady Hutchinson is really first. She makes me feel better. WE ARE PROUD OF CASADY HUTCHINSON AROUND HERE. She has dealt with staggering stress and the usual Trump Tricks from within the scummy GOP... as they have tried to turn her in for saving us. That same element has attracted Cassidy’s followers.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi is next, and she should arrange to award Cassie Hutchinson for her stunning performance.
Ketanji Brown Jackson, our new and greatest Justice of the Supreme Court... is the most noble of tonight’s women. She has endured in the face of gale force winds of prejudice and is about to enter the Cave where truth goes to die... and prejudice is codified... and periodic intervals by a few pin heads that think they are fooling us.
The fabulous Cassidy Hutchinson, questioned by co-chair Cheney, has demonstrated that she is more than able to sort out the criminal element in this Republican White House and the power structure in Washington, DC, and she HAS emerged to teach the nation and her compromised miserable seniors a lesson in ethics, courage, and patriotism... showing her grasp of the constitution and common sense... and her gentle contempt for Mark Meadows, Pasquale A. Cipollone, Mike Pence, the former president, as Sir Rudy, Rudolph William Louis Giuliani, son of a Sing-Sing jailed convict, and lying Rep. Jim Jordan, who is accused of molesting wrestlers under his care, and so, so many others are guilty of sedition, terrorism, criminal trespass and much more - and all, all, and must be prosecuted... along with the man that promulgated all this and is guilty of so much more, former president Donald John Trump, the only president in history that has hidden his transcripts and been impeached twice.
And let’s thank our favourite midnight historian for her labours... I would jump for joy if Heather Cox Richardson found a way to flavour her labours with depth where it comes to describing the pain of being Black in America today - for the depth of our prejudice has not changed since our founding - we have simply altered the rules now and then to follow the arc of history as slowly as possible, to please Texas and many others, as we disgrace ourselves... and cannot seem to find the way Cassidy Hutchinson as found... which is as sad as it is enraging. As they said over Pennsylvania in the last airliner to fall... before the DOD directed flying bomb, Let’s Roll.
Last best words
" gentle contempt".....great description. Will call soon, Sandy.
I was eight in 1964, a white child in Indianola, MS. I can attest to the determination that was already taking root among white men like my father to undo all the good that was being done. The last vote he ever cast was for Donald Trump, and he would be thrilled with the current SCOTUS decisions. I am sixty-five, in good health, and hoping to live long enough to see this court’s despicable revisionism undone.
Right on, Steve! Let’s roll!
It appears the radical right is bent on circumventing precisely what our constitution intended to prevent: authoritarian rule by a select few, that authoritarians select church. All under a loose narcissistic definition of liberty.
I've written this before and I'll do it again; it isn't liberty they're after, it's license. They already have liberty. What they want is to exert unlimited power over people they don't like without consequence to themselves.
License! Spot on. I don't even think power, they just want to do as they please. Undisciplined children.
Greed and power, just ask Rupert.
Herb.
"circumventing"? Perhaps "realizing" or " eastablishing". No?
Funny - the motto of the Italian police force is SUB LEGGE LIBERTAS. The once-GOP isn't too fond of LEGGE.
(Sweden)
I was on a scholarship to Montana SU in 1963-64. Most of the scholarship consisted of board and lodging with a fraternity. "Being there" doesn't mean I can do without this fine history lesson. I quit my pledge to become a member of the fraternity when I learnt it was only for whites. I'm still glad I did, at the age of 19, but it was hard to let these nice guys down; and they were scrambling every month to pay for my stay. I found it weird that the fraternity had been allowed to enter a program for international understanding, and I did not want it to be said of me that I ever was a member of a racist organization.
Bravo!!👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼
Even as a 13-year-old, I was caught up in the fervor of 1964. Life magazine and the CBS Evening News were my conduits to the outside world. After the Cuban Missile Crisis and JFK assassination in 1962 and 1963, I began feeling connected to life beyond the lakes and orange groves and ocean beaches of Central Florida.
I remember going to see LBJ speak at a campaign stop in the parking lot of a shopping center in Orlando. And his landslide victory and a huge Democratic majority in Congress produced a stunning number of victories for civil rights and so much more. Back then, many Republicans voted with Democrats to offset the votes of Southern Democrats.
After my high school integrated without the rancor so common elsewhere in the South, it left with me the impression that America would always be moving forward, striving to make the country and people's lives better.
And now I'm an old dude perplexed by our rapid demise despite so much promise, so much ability to do good. How is it possible that Goldwater's radical words in 1964 — “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And…moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue” — came roaring to life 57 years later on Jan. 6? And all based on the biggest lie in U.S. political history, a lie that keeps metastasizing.
It's beginning to look, as the professor wrote so profoundly, that the South has indeed won the Civil War.
"How is it possible that Goldwater's radical words in 1964 — “extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. And…moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue” — came roaring to life 57 years later on Jan. 6?"
1. Fox News. (Cable)
2. Rush Limbaugh (AM Radio)
3. Survivor.
4. The Apprentice.
5. The Kardashians.
Or, is it just: The problem with America is Americans?
Exactly, sadly. ALL the above, don’t forget Mitch…
Dark money, too.
The South has been winning the war since 1865 when the traitorous military and political leaders were not tried and punished. Lincoln hoped to bring about real peace, but the same evil that started the Civil War murdered him. The evil of former times now is entrenched on the SC. The court MUST be reformed.
Things were going better until Jim Crow laws, legalizing segregation, were passed in the 1880s. Ken Burns 'Reconstruction' will bring many to tears.
It appears the current SCOTUS has found that not quite empty can of acid and is not content with just one pool.
You related to Walt? Great word picture.
Oooo...nice!