calimary
calimary's JournalWelcome to U, TranssexualKaren!
Yeah, I think you and I will be waiting an awfully long time for somebody to explain that. Oh, for certain, they'll have "explanations" galore, but not a single one will make sense in the REAL world, as opposed to the "alternative facts" world they WANT to believe in.
Welcome to DU, Ajji11!
Yeah, I know what you mean. And it's only been a week. BUT, remember - it's only been a week for our side, too. The protests, the numbers, the masses and the new activism spurred by #TheResistance and the Indivisible Guide ( https://www.indivisibleguide.com ) - that is only a week old too. And already it's got the Congressional GOP tied up in knots for fear of what they'll unleash if they stick to their "goal" of taking people's affordable health care away.
Think termites.
Termites take awhile to chew away at the supports under your house and under your roof, til they've undermined the whole works. But MAN, left unchecked, they eventually do.
The bad part of this is - it WILL be slow. But we have to stay on it. If we do that, it will grow and spread and metastasize, and a handful will become legion. And people are ALREADY fired up, Ajji11. I'm 63 and I've never seen this before - the activism that's now spreading and growing more powerful. The GOP already feels the edge of the knife lowering to their throat-level. Many of them will try to ignore it or avoid it or talk their way around it, or hope it goes away. But that's not gonna hold, much less start producing the "results" they had in mind and assumed they'd get, for very long.
I made another donation to Planned Parenthood last night.
I clicked on the option to do it every month.
I stand with Justin Trudeau.
i wonder how soon trump will be picking a fight with Canada. He's already started it with Mexico - that's ONE side of our borders now fucked with. Hey, why not get 'em both stirred up? Target the north now, too, since we just fucked with the south?
And he's picking a fight with China now. And as of this writing, LESS than 24 hours ago, with Iran as well. Who's next? Anybody taking bets?
Thanks back atcha. Solidarity R Us.
Hey, I take this personally. As a woman, as a mother, as the mother of a daughter. As the mother of a daughter who married into a family of many more women than men. Our son-in-law is one of approximately a dozen cousins and he's the only male.
I think of my sisters, their new nieces, my brother's only grandchild - a baby girl, my nephew's only daughter - a baby girl. WHAT ON EARTH are we setting up for them? Besides, we now proudly have an avowed (and proud of it) sexual predator as a so-called president. Yeah, let's all enjoy how "wonderful" this jackass is.
My husband is now "marveling" in a discouraged, disgusted way - at how much shit trump has stirred up in a week. A WEEK! Only his first WEEK!?!?!? And he's picking a fight with Mexico. He's picking a fight with China. He's picking a fight with Iran - well there goes THAT nuclear weapons curtailment treaty...
And hey, working-class/Rust-Belt America, how do you like the idea of YOU paying for that wall, after all? And Mexico will somehow magically pay us back - "later"? And then if trump gets his way and imposes 20% tariffs or some such financial trickery to try and extract more money from them, that means all that made-in-Mexico crap you buy at Walmart is gonna start costing more - so YOU get to pay for that damn wall AGAIN!!! TWICE! DOUBLE! What's that little ditty - "double your pleasure, double your fun"? Yeah. YOU get to pay for that stupid-ass wall TWICE. And it won't work toward the stated goal you all believe in, with your blinders on and your minds closed and your reasoning and logic and objectivity turned off.
How do you like the "Art of THAT Deal"????
I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to see some reporter at a trump news conference
get up and ask - "Mr. trump, how soon will you be sending crews over to the Statue of Liberty to chisel off the plaque on the front of the pedestal - the one that says "give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free..." ? How soon will you be doing that, to underscore your new closed-door policies?"
At EVERY step, I would like to see embarrassing and uncomfortable questions asked - that are net losers for the trump side, making them look bad, making them look UN-American, making them look traitorous and treasonous to our Constitution.
Make them look BAD. Stir shit up. Pick at the scabs til they break open and ooze and get infected. Underscore - obviously and subtly - how harmful, unconstitutional, and literally anti-American and UN-American and utterly DAMAGING their policies are. Cast them in a bad light. Infer negative things. Accentuate the negative. Start casting these policies in a VERY bad and unfavorable light. Weaken their resolve AND public support. Start fomenting doubt that these cockamamie ideas of the trump people make any sense at all.
Chip away, people. Chip away. Anywhere you find an "in."
I wrote something here quite awhile ago whose title as I recall was "think termites." THINK TERMITES. What would termites do?
WWTD
Welcome to DU, butdiduvote!
LIKE your screen name!
I was a very active Hillary supporter, too. I have been since I first discovered her during Campaign 1992. I remember a few weeks before the election, texting my daughter about the larger meaning of breaking that last glass ceiling, what it would mean for women all over the world - that a woman would serve in the most powerful job on the planet. Today, I found myself watching that news conference with trump and Theresa May. I kept imagining how enthralling, uplifting, and totally inspiring it would have been to have seen a President Hillary Clinton standing side-by-side with the female British Prime Minister. What a statement that would have made. What a revolution for women world-wide. A signal that the eons of women being relegated to 2nd-class citizens, or not even citizens but mere property to be bought, sold, and bartered. That was my dream - to realize it hand-in-hand with my grown daughter. I would live to see it happen along WITH her. We'd both be witnessing this cataclysmic leap forward in human history!
I'm afraid I take this whole trump debacle too personally. That bastard and his weasels and flying monkeys STOLE that dream from me.
Welcome to DU, jmbar2!
Yeah, it's a great thread!
And YES we have to develop strategies to confront religionists.
One thing I've noticed as a lifelong Catholic who started in Catholic school:
We were taught about the parable of the rich young man who asked Jesus how he could get into Heaven ("go, sell all your worldly goods and give the money to the poor, and come follow Me"
.
We learned the parable of the poor widow and the rich dude in church - he goes parading down the center aisle with a big bag of gold, to plop it down flamboyantly in front of the altar, so everybody can see and admire. The widow hides in the shadows over to the side, ashamed she could only scrape together a couple of pennies. Jesus said HERS was the donation God found far more pleasing.
We learned about the Beatitudes, in the Sermon on the Mount. The whole "Blessed are the meek, the poor in spirit, the peacemakers" thing.
My favorite is Matthew 25:45 - the one with the (pardon me) "phrase that pays" - "whatever you do to the least of these, you do to ME." Actually that quote is more on the negative - "whatever you DON'T do to the least of these (like not feeding the hungry, comforting the afflicted, sheltering the homeless, or visiting the sick and/or imprisoned), you don't do to Me."
Paul Ryan wraps himself all over the Bible, professing what a loyal devoted Catholic he is. St. Paul talks about the "noisy gong and clanging cymbal" in one of his letters to the Corinthians. Which he says is what you are if you talk the talk but don't walk the walk. Sounds like it fits Paul Ryan. I'd love to corner him someday and ask him how he can be a Catholic AND a republi-CON (keep cutting those taxes on the wealthy, and cutting programs to help the poor and needy)? I don't think it's really possible to be a true follower of Jesus if your job is to take supports away from people, to balance the budget on the backs of the poor, the disadvantaged, the homeless, the handicapped. Aren't those the "least of these" to whom Jesus was referring? I'd love to confront him and others who carry on about morals and religion and faith and invoke God at every turn - like Mike Pence does. And what does he use his power and authority to do? Push for tax cuts that help those who don't need any help, while screwing and nickel-and-diming those who do. I'd love to shove their sanctimonious hypocrisy back down their throats. I'd love to go up to Paul Ryan and sneer - "YOU, sir, are NO Catholic! A true Catholic wouldn't be pushing what you do.
Sorry to be preachy. Lots of Catholic school. Lots of indoctrination. Those nuns and Jesuits never missed an opportunity...
Oh yeah! That's another good low-key place to start.
Definitely! You go into the school system, you get the kids. And you can influence how and what they're taught - and NOT taught. What they're exposed to and what's kept from them. You can infect lots of kids, keep their minds closed, and steer them toward how you want them to think and what you want them to think about. You can build new republi-CONS that way. MAN, you can do some serious damage on your way up the political ambition ladder.
You can even influence what's in and what's censored out of text books. Like they've done in Texas - and that shit has been allowed to spread nationwide. Texas is a MAJOR school book supplier. You can influence kids on evolution and other non-Biblical ideas, you can rewrite history, rename and re characterize things, sanitize things, and other strategic editing.
Ralph Reed was the guy who started advocating this during the 70s and 80s.
Baby-faced head of the Christian Coalition. He urged his minions to start the takeover by running for office. Little, minor, small-time positions like the school board. He actually specified running for the school board. You get in at that low level and you start building from there. You can influence and/or change policy, affect what our kids are taught (or indoctrinated with), and because it's a low-level job, there are relatively few people around to keep track of what you're up to. That becomes the start of your power base, but low enough that you can also fly under the radar. And in a few years, you start climbing. City Council maybe. Then state legislature. Or Congress. And who knows where you can go from there?
Little ol' Ralph Reed did well enough to catch Ronald Reagan's eye, and man did he climb up the power ladder. It made him a player.
Welcome to DU, hells!
Well, he's longtime KBG, and he strikes me as a VERY calculating type - such a smooth, slick, sinister operator, he never leaves a fingerprint. And trump has already lied about him, as recently as today. Said he doesn't know the guy. Well, he's already admitted meeting Putin years ago, I think during his Miss Universe dealings. Putin's been around awhile. I'd bet he knows where more than just all the bodies are buried. Wouldn't surprise me if he even knows where Jimmy Hoffa wound up.
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