 | Ivory Bill Woodpecke… on Episode 16: Public Speaki… |
| Ivory Bill Woodpecke… on Episode 16: Public Speaki… |
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| Ivory Bill Woodpecke… on Episode 16: Public Speaki… |
| Ivory Bill Woodpecke… on Episode 16: Public Speaki… |
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| Propertius on Episode 16: Public Speaki… |
| jmac on Episode 16: Public Speaki… |
| Propertius on Episode 16: Public Speaki… |
| Propertius on Episode 16: Public Speaki… |
| Propertius on Episode 16: Public Speaki… |
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| Propertius on Episode 16: Public Speaki… |
Paul Krugman: Conscience of a Liberal
The Confluence
Suburban Guerrilla Ian WelshHamlet:
Let us go in together,
And still your fingers on your lips, I pray.
The time is out of joint—O cursèd spite,
That ever I was born to set it right!
Nay, come, let’s go together.
Hamlet Act 1, scene 5, 186–190
Filed under: General |
Corrente (Lambert) Avedon’s Sideshow
The Confluence 
Reading about all that is proposed to dismantle the safety nets that remain so that the top can have tax cuts, I wonder how those who voted Trump and pay taxes feel about having subsidized his share of our common load over the past decades? Even with a limited intelligence and the inability to comprehend Faux News manipulation, I never thought Americans who could figure out how to vote would think a man who can’t even manage a decent hair dye job is going to save them–although that salvation seems to be a return to a 1950s sitcom.
Governor of California, Jerry Brown statement on election of Trump
http://www.ktvu.com/news/politics/216779279-story
All the things that should have protected us from a fascist rising:
– the moral courage of political leaders (ha!)
– the media to accurately report truth and facts
– our fellow citizens to protect the most vulnerable of us
I just feel so sad, afraid, and powerless right now.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/nov/11/hillary-clinton-progressive-politics-supporters-donald-trump-win
This article says it all. i couldn’t say it any better. this loss is going to push women’s liberation and independence decades back but hopefully my daughter’s generation will be able to push forward and finally break the last glass ceiling. Maybe my future granddaughter’s generation..
Every institution has failed us. I wonder if this is how people felt when the fascists took over much of Europe. The one hope is that America does not have a history of authoritarianism. But the media has been taken over by oligopolist fascists, and that is why Hillary was defeated, because they essentially showed the voters a distorted mirror which horrifically convinced them that a wonderful, honorable candidate was crooked and criminal, while a stupid and bullying psychopath was interesting and refreshing.
With the corrupt broadcast media already trying to normalize and glorify Trump, I don’t know how we get out of it. The VRA is gone; we have a minority party controlling the entire electoral landscape by suppressing votes and gerrymandering districts. Who changes this, when they will control the Supreme Court, maybe forever?
Fascism was defeated in the 1940’s, but from without, by the Americans and British. Unless we get advanced and good aliens to come in here from the solar system, who is going to save us?
I thought I’d feel better a bit, realizing that Hillary is going to win the popular vote by 2 million or so, but it makes me feel worse. The entire election was rigged, corrupted, gamed; and the media, which is supposed to be our protection, actually collaborated in all it. Hillary wins easily if the media does not cover “emails” a hundred times more than all policy matters combined, as data analysis has shown. Democracy was stolen away from us.
Now I see that the Democrats want Keith Ellison to run the DNC. This feels like the Sanders influence, the deadly spiral that occurred in the ’70’s and ’80’s, when the Democrats were a hopeless minority party of hippies and various minority groups, which lost every time. We can’t win by going further to the left; witness Feingold losing in Wisconsin. There is no Sanders revolution. Another awful residue of Hillary’s “loss” is that the party will now be taken over by the Sanders people, who cannot ever win anything on a national level. The Clintons may have been a bit too moderate for some, but they were progressive–and electable. There is no one to step up and run this party; and the wrong conclusons will be drawn.
Hamlet was a good person, who was not capable of setting things right. He finally acted when it was too late to save himself or others. The closing carnage did provide a possibility for a new leader to perhaps make things better. But unless people plan to rise up, take to the streets, and fight like the Sons of LIbery and the Revolutonary War soldiers, I do not see right now how we are going to set it right. Sorry for the depressing rant. Maybe I’ll feel better about this at some point, but probably not any time soon. Hillary won this election by 2 million or more votes. We will hold onto that. I doubt that the media will tell anyone, though.
Never miss an opportunity to tell anyone when this election is mentioned that Hillary Rodham Clinton won the majority of votes.
Ask everyone to sign the petition out there to eliminate the Electoral College–it doesn’t even require a Constitutional Amendment and is more than a majority signed up by states. Over 303,000 signatures.
http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/abolish-the-electoral-6?akid=173123.35020377.sTH7ie&rd=1&source=mo&t=2
If Keith Ellison is a Bernie Sanders pick, then I cry foul. It makes me believe that Sanders was a paid opperative to rat-fuck Clinton and this is way to rat-fuck the Entire Democrat Party! This cannot stand. A Muslim leading the D party…..it is truly INSANE!!!!!! Yea, that will bring this party together….all 3 people.
Long post.
There’s a rip in the fabric of reality, and we are experiencing shock. Shock is a natural, protective result of trauma (trauma is having nowhere inside or outside oneself to retreat from extremely threatening experience).
Shock can feel like being stunned, staring, not moving around much, thinking a lot. Initial shock alternates with denial (this cannot be happening, is this a dream?, how can this have happened), sadness (crying, sobbing, grief, mourning), and rage (where most of us arrived yesterday), and despair (where we are arriving now), all of which are normal reactions. We are experiencing the repression and coming-to-consciousness again over and over. Eventually, while being willing to express one’s feelings and come to terms with not being able to change the outcome, one works toward finding acceptance–not of the external event, necessarily, but of the reality of the situation in which one finds oneself. From there, one can make plans for action.
Ways to express feelings: any creative expression at all is helpful; writing; voodoo doll creation; throwing darts; jumping up and down on the bed; screaming into your pillow or in your car; talking with like-minded friends; physical affection (hugging); writing to newspapers, blogs, etc.; make a music compilation which expresses how you feel; express gratitude for those who share your values; and so on.
Action is an effective form of coping that helps heal the psyche from trauma and express overwhelming and unconscious feelings. Consider working to restore the Fairness Doctrine, which guarantees an unbiased press, and working to maintain freedom of the press (a cornerstone of our democracy and one of the checks-and-balances it requires) by supporting independent, true journalists and newspapers in the US and around the world. Support individuals and groups who are feeling threatened. Work toward what you want to see happen: volunteer, start your own action group, begin identifying Senate seats up for grabs in 2018 and help those campaigns, actively support those groups and causes you are most concerned about. Millennials have enormous powers of connection through social media, and are a very resourceful generation, and if only they had voted, Hillary would’ve had a landslide. “Be the change you wish to see in the world.” –Ghandi
Action is the antidote to helplessness. Helplessness is a main predictor of depression.
For those concerned about the immediate political future in the U.S., here is as much hope as I have to offer:
-HC actually won the popular vote by 2 million people.
-Only 1 in 4 voters voted for DT (2 in 4 did not vote at all)–not everyone in this country agrees with his stated racism, sexism, xenophobia, homophobia (and only 33% of those who voted for him do, either).
-The President does not make law, and is not a dictator.
-He needs the cooperation of both the House and Senate to set policy.
-He is unlikely to hold the Senate at the midterm elections in 2 years.
-It is quite possible to unseat the GOP Congress in 2018; GOP majority is slim.
-The Senate confirms the President’s Supreme Court nominee.
-Only one Supreme Court vacancy is open now.
-Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg is likely to stay on, and will hopefully live until ’18, so the Supreme Court will continue as it was in early 2016.
-That Supreme Ct didn’t overturn Roe, supported gay marriage, didn’t deport people, and so on.
-He can’t start deporting people on his own.
-He’s perhaps walked that back already, saying he will only deport convicted immigrant criminals, which the U.S. already does. He goes back and forth.
-His party is very fractured, and like the Dems in 2008, could have trouble acting on the power they have for the next 2 years.
-It will take a long time for his party to stabilize.
-His cabinet has no successful governmental experience. They are walking into new jobs in new fields. It’s going to take time to get up and running, and then the midterm election campaigns will be happening.
-His Senate members are saying they hope “to maybe enact tax reform.”
-Even in a competent administration, it would take a long time for his grandiose proposals to be enacted, if, in fact, the GOP Congress supports them at all.
-It is likely he will hit reality and fail quickly, and those who are now basking in his glow will likely then feel humiliated and turn against him.
-Most of those with personality traits he exhibits self-destruct when they achieve power.
-He was a pro-choice Dem before deciding to run for POTUS, and he admired HC; he doesn’t have the power to jail her because, again, he is not a dictator. Neither is Guiliani.
-He is going to appear in Court early next month (for fraud); the Presidency doesn’t shield him from that. Even if that case is continued, the NY Attorney General has him on the ropes for racketeering and elder fiduciary abuse.
-The world is watching him. The EU has demanded to meet him “immediately” to determine what he plans to do regarding NATO.
Steady on.
This post helped me. Thank you for writing it.
I’m glad. You’re welcome (virtual hug). My way of taking action.
We should move this up to the front page, if you agree
Sure, RD!
Thank you.
And yes, you are absolutely right that his fate is just around the corner and will turn against him, so will his foolish supporters.
We’ll fight back and survive this very low blow…and “Keep Going”.
Yet, I wanted so bad for Hillary to break that glass ceiling, so did she…
and she will keep on shining and make history in the wide world platform…We will follow her steps…
I believe she’s been just the catalyst of this brutal confrontation with the real America; full of flaws, corruption and prejudice, and not as great as we want to believe or think of it ourselves.
Much it is to say about the Media and social networks of all types, with to much power and zero sense of responsibility, judicious conduct and much less fairness….and yes -sad to say, intelligence
edit typo: too much
Thanks. I can breathe again…..a bit. The soundtrack to my grieving has been Leonard Cohen. So many fitting songs, especially his last offering, “You Want It Darker”.
Have you seen this one? It is searing, and so beautiful: https://twitter.com/RachelP_8/status/796917614262046720
So beautiful. Gives me chills and draws tears. I just realized it was recorded on my birthday. I’ll take that as a gift. Thank you….again.
Don’t you just hate numbers?
https://willyloman.wordpress.com/2016/11/10/liberal-elites-are-determined-their-base-learn-nothing-from-this-loss-i-want-the-left-to-see-it-please-just-see-it/
Why hate them? Numbers are just numbers.
For example, the number 72,000. That’s the number of dollars the average Trump voter makes per year. Not Trump-level wealth, to be sure, but hardly desperate poverty.
How about 575,700? While we all know it’s the electoral votes which count, that is the number by which Clinton edged Trump in the popular vote, at last count–but I must be imagining that, since nobody but us Confluencers liked her. 😉
Or how about this set of numbers?
However, I think the most important number of all for understanding this election is 2013, which is the year in which the Supreme Joke gutted the Voting Rights Act. Had that happened in 2005 instead, I reckon we’d be discussing the winding-down of President McCain’s second term.
But thanks for playing, Joffrey, and please enjoy these lovely parting gifts…
We’ve been here before. Not time to despair. It’s sad, but over the course of my voting lifetime, most of my votes did not land on the winning side. I know that this time was different, but WE have a new president, and while that is a shock, we’ll all live another day and hopefully until the next election. In the meantime, let’s guard the advances we have made, quietly and calmly re connect and gather our strength and go forward. We didn’t win this one. It is a shame.
We’ve never been here before.
Lady V great post!!!! It gives me hope….
Thank you. Keep your face toward the light (it is hard right now).
The Rest is Silence.
Oh, speaking of the effect of the gutting of the Voting Rights Act on the election, here’s Greg Palast:
The Election Was Stolen–Here’s How…
Big names backing this petition Lady Gaga, Amanda Seyfried, Perez Hilton, Sia, award winning journalists and thousands more https://www.change.org/p/electoral-college-electors-electoral-college-make-hillary-clinton-president-on-december-19
Please sign it! We cannot make this easy for him. Make some noise
Would you post this at Uppity Woman?