Lazy Caturday Reads: “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.

Posted: February 14, 2026 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

Happy Valentine’s Day!!

This morning, Steven Beschloss posted the following discussion question for his readers at his Substack “America America”: Is Love More Powerful Than Hate?

I had in mind to write about villainy. It’s a fact of our public life that the Trump regime is thick with this dark force and overloaded with people who revel in it. The villains come easily to mind: Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Pete Hegseth, Russel Vought, Greg Bovino (to name a few) and of course their ringleader, Donald Trump. They have motivated countless others to join their hateful cause to reject the Constitution and demolish democracy in America.

But on this day—Valentine’s Day—I want to turn this over and look at the flip side. Because behind this discussion of villains and villainy is my belief that their dark force can be defeated with the force of light and love. I don’t mean the biblical advice to “love your enemies,” although that may be a mindset that others more merciful than I can conjure.

I’m thinking more about the guidance found in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. on the topic of love. Let me share four shining examples:

  • “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos.”
  • “Hate cannot drive out hate. Only love can do that.”
  • “I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality.”
  • “I know that love is ultimately the only answer to mankind’s problems.”

There are days that these insights—these deeply held convictions—may seem inadequate to confront the horrors we witness committed by men and women who have lost their moral compass, assuming that they once possessed one. But I’d like to suggest that the more powerful our revulsion toward the regime’s acts of villainy, the more we are influenced by the inverse.

I returned to yesterday’s essay, “Pam Bondi’s Utter Contempt for Justice,” to test this notion. If you read it and thought that I am horrified by her villainous behavior this week, you would be right. But let’s look at the basis for my horror in three sentences from the first several paragraphs: “It’s hard to imagine someone more overtly hostile to justice and more utterly incapable of basic human compassion…This person is responsible for serving the people…But when asked for the most basic show of humanity, she couldn’t bring herself to do it.” Behind the obvious criticism of her hateful action is love: For justice, for basic human compassion, for serving the people, for humanity.

My point is that in our articulation of the horrors, we can find the light that can inspire us to stay in the fight and overcome this dark chapter. “Love is the greatest force in the universe. It is the heartbeat of the moral cosmos,” King wrote. In other words, love is more powerful than hate and, as King also insisted, “the only answer to mankind’s problems.”

Bad Bunny sent a similar message with his Super Bowl performance. Is it true? Can love conquer hate? Food for thought on Valentine’s Day.

Now for the news, which is again filled with hate and fear.

Trump appears to be planning some sort of attack on Iran.

Reuthers: Exclusive: US military preparing for potentially weeks-long Iran.

The U.S. military is preparing for the possibility of sustained, weeks-long operations against Iran if President Donald Trump orders an attack, two U.S. officials told Reuters, in what could become a far more serious conflict than previously seen between the countries.

The disclosure by the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitive nature of the planning, raises the stakes for the diplomacy underway between the United States and Iran.

U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner will hold negotiations with Iran on Tuesday in Geneva, with representatives from Oman acting as mediators. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio cautioned on Saturday that while Trump’s preference was to reach a deal with Tehran, “that’s very hard to do.”

Meanwhile, Trump has amassed military forces in the region, raising fears of new military action. U.S. officials said on Friday the Pentagon was sending an additional aircraft carrier to the Middle East, adding thousands more troops along with fighter aircraft, guided-missile destroyers and other firepower capable of waging attacks and defending against them.

Trump, speaking to U.S. troops on Friday at a base in North Carolina, openly floated the possibility of regime change in Iran, saying it “seems like that would be the best thing that could happen.” He declined to share who he wanted to take over Iran, but said “there are people.”

“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” Trump said.

Trump has long voiced skepticism about sending ground troops into Iran, saying last year “the last thing you want to do is ground forces,” and the kinds of U.S. firepower arrayed in the Middle East so far suggest options for strikes primarily by air and naval forces.

The New York Times: Trump Says Regime Change Would Be the ‘Best Thing’ for Iran.

President Trump said on Friday that regime change in Iran “would be the best thing that could happen,” as he continued to threaten military action against the country.

“For 47 years, they’ve been talking and talking and talking,” he told reporters after visiting troops at Fort Bragg. “In the meantime, we’ve lost a lot of lives while they talk.”

In recent weeks, Mr. Trump has called for new leadership in Iran, and The New York Times reported in January that he was mulling whether regime change would be a viable military option.

But his latest comments are, perhaps, Mr. Trump’s most overt endorsement of regime change, even as U.S. officials concede that ousting Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would be much more complex than the operation that captured Nicolás Maduro, then the leader of Venezuela.

Still, officials have said that Mr. Trump had not made a final decision and was considering a range of military options.

The Trump administration has been steadily building up its military capabilities in the Middle East as Mr. Trump considers whether to strike the country again. Mr. Trump threatened last month to attack Iran if its government did not agree to a deal to curb its nuclear program….

But senior U.S. officials remain skeptical that the Iranians will agree to a deal that satisfies Mr. Trump, who has shown a growing impatience with the negotiations. This month, Omani officials mediated talks between Iran and a U.S. delegation that included Steve Witkoff,

A bit more on possible attack plans:

Mr. Trump has been weighing a range of military actions, including targeting Iran’s nuclear program and its ability to launch ballistic missiles. He is also considering sending American commandos to go after Iranian military targets, among other moves, the officials said.

To prepare, the Pentagon has been building up an “armada,” as Mr. Trump calls it, in the region. It includes the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln carrier strike group, eight guided missile destroyers that can shoot down Iranian ballistic missiles, land-based ballistic missile defense systems and submarines that can launch Tomahawk cruise missiles at targets in Iran.

And on Thursday, the crew of a second aircraft carrier, the U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford, was told it would leave the Caribbean, where the ship joined the U.S. operation last month to seize Mr. Maduro, and deploy to the Middle East as part of Mr. Trump’s pressure campaign.

Yesterday, Trump posted a photo of a U.S. aircraft carrier on Truth Social, perhaps as a foreshadowing of his plans for Iran.

The Caribbean boat strikes are back.

NBC News: U.S. strikes alleged drug boat in Caribbean, killing three.

The U.S. Southern Command said it struck a vessel allegedly transporting drugs in the Caribbean on Friday, killing three people.

“Joint Task Force Southern Spear conducted a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations,” Southern Command said in a post on X, adding that “intelligence confirmed the vessel was transiting along known narco-trafficking routes in the Caribbean and was engaged in narco-trafficking operations.”

“Three narco-terrorists were killed during this action. No U.S. military forces were harmed,” the post said.

The U.S. has not provided evidence supporting its allegations about the boat, passengers, cargo or the number of people killed.

This latest strike comes after the U.S. on Monday struck a vessel also alleged to be transporting drugs in the eastern Pacific, killing two people and leaving one survivor.

A few days ago, there was a disturbing incident in Texas in which DHS used a powerful laser weapon with out notifying other parts of the government. It caused the FAA to close the air space over El Paso, Texas for a time. I have been curious about how this happened.

The New York Times, Feb. 11: Border Officials Are Said to Have Caused El Paso Closure by Firing Anti-Drone Laser.

The abrupt closure of El Paso’s airspace late Tuesday was precipitated when Customs and Border Protection officials deployed an anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense without giving aviation officials enough time to assess the risks to commercial aircraft, according to multiple people briefed on the situation.

The episode led the Federal Aviation Administration to abruptly declare that the nearby airspace would be shut down for 10 days, an extraordinary pause that was quickly lifted Wednesday morning at the direction of the White House.

Top administration officials quickly claimed that the closure was in response to a sudden incursion of drones from Mexican drug cartels that required a military response, with Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy declaring in a social media post that “the threat has been neutralized.”

But that assertion was undercut by multiple people familiar with the situation, who said that the F.A.A.’s extreme move came after immigration officials earlier this week used an anti-drone laser shared by the Pentagon without coordination with the F.A.A. The people spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

C.B.P. officials thought they were firing on a cartel drone, the people said, but it turned out to be a party balloon. Defense Department officials were present during the incident, one person said….

The military has been developing high-energy laser technology to intercept and destroy drones, which the Trump administration has said are being used by Mexican cartels to track Border Patrol agents and smuggle drugs into the United States.

The airspace closure provoked a significant backlash from local officials and sharp questions by lawmakers on Capitol Hill, including some Republicans, who expressed skepticism about the administration’s version of the events.

This country is being run by morons.

NBC News: CBP shot down party balloons with anti-drone tech before FAA closed El Paso airspace, sources say.

The sudden closure of El Paso’s airspace Wednesday came sometime after U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials used an anti-drone laser that was provided by the military to shoot down objects that were later identified as party balloons, four people familiar with the matter said.

The testing of U.S. military-owned laser technology was taking place in the proximity of the airport. The FAA responded by issuing a “temporary flight restriction notice,” which was to shut down the airspace for 10 days. It prevented flights, including helicopters used for medical transport, below 18,000 feet. The airport is a major hub for the region, with more than 50 flights scheduled every day.

The airspace was reopened several hours later Wednesday morning. The decision prompted confusion and finger-pointing inside the Trump administration over who was to blame….

One of the people familiar with the testing said the Defense Department has a working relationship with Homeland Security, where CBP is headquartered, that allows its personnel to use certain military equipment for its objectives, testing, evaluation and use along the southern border.

Recently, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth authorized the use of the weapon for CBP, the people said. Spokespeople for CBP referred questions to the White House, which did not elaborate beyond initial statements.

It figures Hegseth would be involved in this mess.

From military expert Mark Hertling at The Bulwark: The El Paso Balloon Incident Could Have Been a Disaster.

AFTER PROLONGED CONFUSION, we may have some clarity on what caused the emergency restriction on the airspace around El Paso International Airport: Someone used a sophisticated anti-air laser against what they thought was a drone launched from Mexico, but turned out to be a party balloon. Understandably, the first suspects were the Army units at Fort Bliss, which abuts El Paso and the airport. But it wasn’t the Army that fired the weapon.

According to the New York Times, Customs and Border Protection personnel fired an experimental anti-drone laser on loan from the Department of Defense at what they thought was a cartel drone—without sufficient coordination with the Federal Aviation Administration. That prompted the FAA to shut down the airspace around the airport up to 18,000 feet in an extraordinary emergency move.

But focusing on the harmlessness of the target obscures the deeper issue: Why was this weapon employed without the discipline that governs every legitimate use of force in the military?

Fort Bliss sits on the edge of El Paso. While it’s a large post, and it has a very isolated desert training area, it borders a large city with hospitals, businesses, highways, civilian neighborhoods, and a relatively large international airport.

The post is home to the 1st Armored Division, an organization I once commanded. Like every major installation in the Army, Fort Bliss operates under detailed standing operating procedures governing weapons employment—whether on a live-fire range, during air-defense exercises, or in any activity that could affect surrounding airspace or population centers.

Those procedures are not bureaucratic red tape. They are necessary safety barriers. They exist precisely because military commanders understand various immutable facts: weapons are dangerous, coordination for any training event is critical, citizens live nearby, and mistakes do not stay contained.

It’s therefore unsurprising—though deeply concerning—that reports indicate the Fort Bliss commander and the command and staff of Northern Command were as alarmed as the FAA by the balloon shoot-down. That’s because they know any uncoordinated weapons use is not merely unsafe; it is unacceptable.

Please go read the rest at The Bulwark, if you’re interested. Personally, I find this incident deeply disturbing. There are simply too many incompetent–even stupid–people running our government. Eventually there is going to be a serious disaster.

More disturbing Trump Administration/DHS news–this time involving the Social Security Administration:

Wired: Social Security Workers Are Being Told to Hand Over Appointment Details to ICE.

Workers at the Social Security Administration have been told to share information about in-person appointments with agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, WIRED has learned.

“If ICE comes in and asks if someone has an upcoming appointment, we will let them know the date and time,” an employee with direct knowledge of the directive says. They spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

While the majority of appointments with SSA take place over the phone, some appointments still happen in person. This applies to people who are deaf or hard of hearing and need a sign language interpreter, or if someone needs to change their direct deposit information. Noncitizens are also required to appear in person to review continued eligibility of benefits.

Social Security numbers are issued to US citizens but also to foreign students and people legally allowed to live and work in the country. In some cases, when a child or dependent is a citizen and the family member responsible for them is not, that person might need to accompany the child or dependent to an office visit.

The order to share information, which was recently communicated verbally to workers at certain SSA offices, marks a new era of collaboration between SSA and the Department of Homeland Security, ICE’s parent agency….

The SSA has been sharing data with ICE for much of President Donald Trump’s second term. In April, WIRED reported that the Trump administration had been pooling sensitive data from across the government, including from the the SSA, DHS, and the Internal Revenue Service. By November, WIRED learned that the SSA had made the arrangements official and had updated a public notice that said the agency was sharing “citizenship and immigration information” with DHS. “It was shockingly clear that there was interest in getting access to immigration data by [the] Trump administration,” a former SSA official tells WIRED. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity due to concerns of retaliation.

This is from the Professional Development Academy: ‘Suicide is only one option’: Social Security staff newly assigned to phone duties raise concerns over training.

The Social Security Administration has instructed employees newly assigned to answering phones to tell callers expressing suicidal thoughts that suicide is “one option,” raising concerns from employees and experts in the field who called the approach unorthodox.

SSA recently began shifting new swaths of its workforce to phone answering duty, including those who normally receive and process retirement and disability claims, manage the agency’s technology and work in the agency’s finances unit. Those employees received brief, three-hour training before they began answering calls.

As part of that training, they were warned some callers may express suicidal ideation and presented with examples using a theoretical employee named Fiona.

“It’s important for Fiona to keep the caller engaged and to remind her that suicide is only one option,” the animated trainer told employees in the video, a copy of which was obtained by Government Executive, “and that there is no urgency to make any decisions.”

Employees at the training, which occurred on Jan. 26 for benefits authorizers and post-entitlement technical experts, were taken aback by the comment and asked their supervisors for clarity. One employee at the training said there was “disbelief that it was just said” among those in the room.

Caitlin Thompson, a clinical psychologist who spent eight years at the Veterans Affairs Department as a clinical care coordinator on the Veterans Crisis Line and later as the department’s national director of suicide prevention, said SSA’s approach did not follow commonly accepted best practices.

“It’s not a normal thing to say,” Thompson said. “No. That’s not the thing you say to somebody who might be suicidal.”

Instead, SSA would be better suited telling employees to ask callers if they feel safe in the immediate term and if they say no, to tell the caller that they will work with their supervisor to get them in touch with a crisis line.

Read more at the link.

I’ll end with this update on Trump’s ballroom obsession.

The Washington Post (gift link): New images of White House ballroom show clearest look yet at Trump project.

New renderings shared Friday offer the clearest look yet at President Donald Trump’s proposed White House ballroom addition — a project advancing even as it is challenged in court and questioned on Capitol Hill.

Shalom Baranes Associates, the firm handling the project, shared the renderings with the National Capital Planning Commission, a committee charged by Congress with overseeing major federal construction projects in the region. The renderings include various angles of the ballroom building, an approximately 90,000-square-foot addition that would also include offices for White House staff. The White House has dubbed the project its “East Wing Modernization.”

The images reveal at least one significant change from earlier designs: the removal of a large triangular pediment above the ballroom’s southern portico. Rodney Cook Jr. — a Trump appointee who chairs the Commission of Fine Arts, another federal panel reviewing the project — had warned in January that the pediment was “immense” and pressed the architects about whether it could be reduced.

Despite the revisions, the proposed addition would remain the same height as the White House at its highest point — a priority for Trump and a major concern for outside architects and historical preservationists. Critics have warned the project could overshadow the iconic main mansion and alter long-protected sightliness around the complex. The new renderings indicate the building could block views of the White House residence from certain viewpoints, such as locations on 15th Street NW, according to the designs shared Friday.

Bruce Redman Becker, an architect who was appointed to the Commission of Fine Arts by former president Joe Biden and removed by Trump last year, said the renderings show “a poorly proportioned pseudo-neoclassical structure that is completely out of scale with the White House.” He also said that the images shown in the renderings did not comply with decades-old guidelines developed by the National Park Service for construction projects at the White House and its neighboring park, which call for new additions to be compatible with the historic structure.

“The design team clearly ignored these guidelines, and should be asked to revise and resubmit plans that follow the guidelines,” Becker said.

You can use the gift link to read more and see the renderings.

That’s it for me today. What are your thoughts on all this? What else is on your mind?

Mostly Monday Reads: Of Caucuses and Kings

Posted: January 15, 2024 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 6 Comments

Happy Martin Luther King Day, Sky Dancers!

Time to celebrate Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion!  It’s also time to remember our history so we can work together to form a more perfect union for every one of our citizens and citizens-to-be.  The paintings today are the work of two African American Women Artists. Faith Ringgold, 93 years old, paints with various materials. She’s an intersectionalist artist who is most known for her narrative quilts. Malcah Zeldis, 92 years old, is known for art that reflects biblical, historical, and autobiographical themes. Zeldis has painted themes that present Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King and his life and legacy. Both of these artists should be celebrated for their contributions to art and the lives it represents. Thanks to JJ, who sent me down this rabbit hole! Please spend some time with the links to their stories and art.

Today is also the Iowa Republican Caucuses.  I find it odd they chose this day but probably felt that a holiday might increase turn-out.  However, Mother Nature had a different idea. NBC reports this. “Highlights: Trump and Haley nabbed big endorsements in freezing Iowa. “The candidates braved record-low temperatures as they made their final pitches.”  The Polar Vortex making its way here and will give us temps all day tomorrow in the 20s.  Hence, I will be spending the afternoon wrapping pipes. Everyone farther north has the brutal cold.

I agree with this from Lakota Man on his threads feed. I’m not sharing his photos.  I want it all to be about the images of these fabulous artists!

Ron DeSantis has banned Black authored books and African-American history from Florida schools. And Nikki Haley still won’t attribute the Civil War to slavery. So, any kind of MLK related statement they make today will be totally and completely full of shit and more Republican hypocrisy.

Trump is counting on the crazy vote. This is from Mike Wendling for the BBC. “Iowa caucus: Trump counts on evangelicals to carry him to victory.”

The video is bombastic, even by Mr Trump’s standards. Just consider the title: God Made Trump.

“God looked down on his planned paradise and said, ‘I need a caretaker,'” a voiceover intones over a minimalist piano track. “So God gave us Trump.”

The former president, according to the narrator, is carrying out the will of God. He’s “a shepherd to mankind” who will “fight the Marxists” with “arms strong enough to wrestle the deep state”.

The video is based on So God Made a Farmer, a 1978 speech by American radio host Paul Harvey which extols the virtues of simple rural American life.

Independently produced by a group calling itself “Trump’s Online War Machine”, the clip started to pick up steam a week ago when Mr Trump shared it with millions of followers on his Truth Social account. It immediately enraged some religious leaders here in Iowa.

“He’s not the saviour,” said Michael Demastus, pastor of the Fort Des Moines Church of Christ in the state capital. “Our allegiance as evangelicals is to Jesus, not to the Republican Party or to Donald Trump.”

But despite Mr Demastus’ insistence that many voters agree with him – and that a surprise is in store on Monday – opinion polls show a different story, with Mr Trump poised for a runaway victory over his Republican rivals.

Evangelical support is crucial here in Iowa, with born-again Christians expected to make up around two-thirds of all Republican caucusgoers.

They are a diverse voting bloc – made up of various denominations and including more traditional churchgoers along with others who may not even regularly go to a church, yet still define themselves as evangelical.

American People Series #4: The Civil Rights Triangle, 1963 ©Faith Ringgold

I first met these folks in 1980 when the Nebraska Chair of the Democratic Party sent me to try to stop the Republican Party’s foray into theocracy.  I went to the County convention to save the platform from folks trying to remove support from the ERA and decimate Reproductive Health.  Pat Robertson’s political campaign had ignited them.  They had to be bussed in because they simultaneously showed up like some kind of cult army.  They all carried the list of who and how they should vote on colored cards. The women were versions of each other.  Hand-made pioneer=looking dresses of little floral prints, long dull hair, bowed heads and herded like sheep by men.  I watched them later in 1992, screaming and yelling about ‘multicultural influences’ in the school curriculum. They never gave up, and here we are. They are angry, violent, and hateful. They are everything I always was taught that biblical Jesus was not.

This is from Politico.  “Trump consolidates evangelical vote in Iowa. Kari Lake swooped into Bob Vander Plaats’ church on Sunday, a show of force — if not an outright troll — ahead of the caucuses.”  Trump suits them to a tee.

Just as the Sunday morning service started here at Soteria church, a top Donald Trump surrogate and Arizona firebrand, Kari Lake, walked in.

To any political observer, it appeared to be an obvious troll. In a metro area rich with churches, Soteria has hosted several Republican presidential candidates in the past year. But the Baptist church, with its 1,300-member congregation, also has a well known parishioner: the Iowa social conservative leader Bob Vander Plaats, who endorsed Ron DeSantis and angered Trump and his allies in doing so.

Lake said she woke up on Sunday and just wanted to go to church.

But it was also a flex. For all the attempts by DeSantis and his evangelical allies to court the conservative Christian vote, Trump not only remains dominant with the group, but is relying on it to fuel his massive lead in Iowa ahead of the caucuses on Monday. A critical faction of the GOP that once blocked his ascendance here in 2016, evangelicals are now a primary reason he is so far ahead.

“Of course I’m caucusing for President Trump,” said Judy Billings, a loyal member of the congregation, clutching her Bible as she entered the foyer. “I just love the guy. I think he’s a total hero, and he has my full support … I think he’s the only one that can win and lead our country.”

Some Republicans are saying the quiet part out loud now that Donald has made being openly racist cool again.

Malcah Zeldis, Martin Luther King, 1995

Elizabeth Spiers has a great Op-Ed up in the New York Times. “What Nikki Haley — and I — Learned at a Segregation Academy.”

After her failure to identify slavery as the cause of the Civil War generated a wave of criticism last month, Nikki Haley assured her potential constituents that she had Black friends, and that she understood the war’s origins. Growing up in South Carolina, she said, “literally in second and third grade, you learn about slavery.” Conveniently producing Black friends is, alas, not surprising, but claiming she learned that the Civil War was a battle over slavery in second and third grade is.

Governor Haley attended a segregation academy, a type of private school established in the years after the Supreme Court’s 1954 decision in Brown v. Board of Education by white parents who did not want their children attending school with Black children.

By 1975, the number of private schools in South Carolina grew more than tenfold, enrolling as many as 90 percent of the white children in some majority Black counties. The Supreme Court eventually ruled that discrimination on the basis of race wasn’t legal at private schools, either, but even today, many segregation academies remain overwhelmingly white.

Ms. Haley graduated in 1989 from Orangeburg Preparatory School. Orangeburg was the product of a merger between Wade Hampton and Willington Academy, also segregation academies, the former of which was named after one of the largest slaveholding families in South Carolina. At one point, graduates of Hampton received Confederate flag lapel pins, which were meant to symbolize resistance against integration. The year Ms. Haley graduated, her high school yearbook featured at most a handful of Black students.

I believe they refer to this as passing.  No wonder Haley identifies as white on the census and other forms.   While Haley haunts Iowa, our Vice President speaks at an NAACP conference in South Carolina.  She also did this virtual speech.

Another black woman defending the rule of law in our country has taken the podium today.

Slave Rape #3: Fight to Save Your Life, 1972 © 2021 Faith Ringgold

Meanwhile, back in Iowa, John McCormack of The Dispatch reports this. “Courting the Kook Vote in Iowa, Vivek Draws the Ire of Trump. Ramaswamy is fourth in the polls, but top-of-mind for the former president.”  I admit I’m giggling over these sparring bullies.

Vivek Ramaswamy was just going through his implausible plan for firing 75 percent of the federal workforce—“the first four agencies we’re going to shut down outright are the FBI, the ATF, the CDC, and the U.S. Department of Education”—when he was interrupted by a man in the crowd.

“What about the CIA, sir?” asked an Iowan named Nathen Trausch. “That’s where all the pedophiles are.”

“Well, CIA is a major problem, but they shouldn’t even exist outside of the military,” Ramaswamy replied. He tried to turn the conversation back to his plan to slash the federal government before Trausch interrupted him again.

“Department of Defense has 5,000 pedophiles in it that in 2019 got arrested by Trump,” Trausch said.

“Well, you know, they deserve to actually be held accountable,” Ramaswamy replied. He later promised Trausch that he would arrest even more child sex-traffickers than Trump did.

It was par for the course for Ramaswamy, who in recent weeks has made an aggressive play for the kook vote. At the December 6 GOP presidential primary debate—the last he qualified for—Ramaswamy emphasized that he was the only candidate on stage who would say that “January 6 now does look like it was an inside job.” He spent the last week campaigning with Candace Owens, a media personality who has made headlines in recent months for her anti-Israel and antisemitic rhetoric, and former Iowa congressman Steve King, who was stripped of his committee assignments and defeated in a GOP primary following his comments questioning whether white supremacy should be considered “offensive.”

What does Ramaswamy have to show for it? The final Des Moines Register poll conducted by the highly respected J. Ann Selzer found Ramaswamy ticking up a few points since December, from 5 percent to 8 percent, while Donald Trump ticked down a few points, from 51 percent to 48 percent.

Malcha Zeldis (NY/Israel 1933-) Peaceable Kingdom

Vivek, however, evidently can’t pass as white. This is from The Independent. “Voter tells Vivek Ramaswamy’s wife that some Iowans don’t support him because ‘they think he’s Muslim’. The presidential hopeful’s religion and skin colour are still factors that prospective voters are considering, locals told Apoorva Ramaswamy.”  I also wonder about the current hatred of immigrants among Republicans impacting the few bits of diversity we find in its presidential candidates.

Some voters in Iowa are still hesitant to throw their support behind Vivek Ramaswamy because they “think he is Muslim”, according to supporters of the presidential hopeful.

Mr Ramaswamy’s religion and skin colour are still factors that prospective voters are considering, locals told his wife Apoorva Ramaswamy at a recent campaign event.

According to polling by FiveThirtyEight, Mr Ramaswamy lags far behind his three Republican rivals on both a national and state level – commanding just 6.6 per cent of the vote in the latter survey – ahead of the Iowa caucuses on Monday.

At a campaign meet-and-greet on Thursday, Ms Ramaswamy asked supporter Theresa Fowler “what do people say” about why they were not supporting her husband.

“Well, the only one I have and I couldn’t even remember who said it to me, but they mentioned his dark skin and they think he’s Muslim,” Ms Fowler said.

“I kind of set them straight on that. I don’t know if they believe me or think I was covering for him, I don’t know.”

Ms Ramaswamy replied: “Not much we can do about that one.”

No, there’s not much you can do about that one.  It’s why we need to up the Voting Rights Act, which is something Republicans abhor. Why be a part of that?  Why put your children through that? Why teach your children to be like that?

Have a wonderful day!  Those Caucuses have coverage tonight, but I’ll be doing something else.  I can’t imagine listening to the press interview any Iowa Republicans these days.  It makes my stomach churn just thinking about it.  Anyway, I’m off to load up on some hot steel oats and take on those pipes and faucets.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Sunday Reads: The 60th Anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

Posted: August 27, 2023 | Author: | Filed under: just because | Tags: , , , , , | 7 Comments

Good Day!!

Tomorrow is the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, which took place on August 28, 1963.

In August of 1963, I was just about to begin my sophomore year in high school. I was so inspired by the the events I saw on TV that day! John Kennedy was president, Martin Luther King was a hero, and it seemed that the times they really were a-changing, to paraphrase Bob Dylan.

When I got back to school, I interviewed a number of my classmates who had attended the march, and wrote a feature article about their experiences for my school paper The Munsonian.

Little did we know that on November 22 that year, John Kennedy would be assassinated in Dallas. Lyndon Johnson carried out many of Kennedy’s goals; but his obsession with Vietnam destroyed his presidency, and he decided not to run for reelection.

On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King would be assassinated. The man whom Kennedy had defeated in 1960 would win the 1968 presidential election, and the rest was history, so to speak. The high hopes for freedom and equality were dashed. Nixon and the Republicans used racial animus to gain power–the famous “Southern strategy.”

This page at The Smithsonian gathers interesting memorabilia from that day in 1963.

On August 28, 1963, more than 250,000 people gathered in the nation’s capital for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. The march was the brainchild of longtime civil rights activist and labor leader A. Philip Randolph. With the support of the gifted organizer Bayard Rustin, the march was a collaboration of all factions of the civil rights movement. Originally conceived as a mass demonstration to spotlight economic inequalities and press for a new federal jobs program and a higher minimum wage, the goals of the march expanded to include calls for congressional passage of the Civil Rights Act, full integration of public schools, and enactment of a bill prohibiting job discrimination. The program at the Lincoln Memorial featured an impressive roster of speakers—including John Lewis—and closed with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Midway through his address, King abandoned his prepared text and launched into the soaring expression of his vision for the future, declaring, “I have a dream today.”

On 60th anniversary of the March on Washington, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture reflects on its historical legacy. King’s “I Have a Dream Speech” will be on view in the museum for a limited time, Aug. 7–Sept. 18, 2023, in the Defending Freedom, Defining Freedom gallery. 

People gathered in Washington DC over the weekend to mark the anniversary.

From the AP: Thousands converge on National Mall to mark the March on Washington’s 60th anniversary.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Thousands converged Saturday on the National Mall for the 60th anniversary of Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.’s March on Washington, saying a country that remains riven by racial inequality has yet to fulfill his dream.

“We have made progress, over the last 60 years, since Dr. King led the March on Washington,” said Alphonso David, president and CEO of the Global Black Economic Forum. “Have we reached the mountaintop? Not by a long shot.”

The event was convened by the Kings’ Drum Major Institute and the Rev. Al Sharpton ‘s National Action Network. A host of Black civil rights leaders and a multiracial, interfaith coalition of allies rallied attendees on the same spot where as many as 250,000 gathered in 1963 for what is still considered one of the greatest and most consequential racial justice and equality demonstrations in U.S. history.

Inevitably, Saturday’s event was shot through with contrasts to the initial, historic demonstration. Speakers and banners talked about the importance of LGBTQ and Asian American rights. Many who addressed the crowd were women after only one was given the microphone in 1963.

Pamela Mays McDonald of Philadelphia attended the initial march as a child. “I was 8 years old at the original March and only one woman was allowed to speak — she was from Arkansas where I’m from — now look at how many women are on the podium today,” she said.

For some, the contrasts between the size of the original demonstration and the more modest turnout Saturday were bittersweet. “I often look back and look over to the reflection pool and the Washington Monument and I see a quarter of a million people 60 years ago and just a trickling now,” said Marsha Dean Phelts of Amelia Island, Florida. “It was more fired up then. But the things we were asking for and needing, we still need them today.”

CBS News: On the March on Washington’s 60th anniversary, watch how CBS News covered the Civil Rights protest in 1963.

On Aug. 28, 1963, Walter Cronkite began his evening news broadcast with a vivid description of the March on Washington. The day would come to be a watershed moment in the equal rights movement for Black Americans.

“They called it the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom,” said Cronkite. “They came from all over America. Negroes and Whites, housewives and Hollywood stars, senators and a few beatniks, clergymen and probably a few Communists. More than 200,000 of them came to Washington this morning in a kind of climax to a historic spring and summer in the struggle for equal rights.” 

One of those clergymen was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., who made his famed “I Have A Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial on the afternoon of Aug. 28. He spoke for 16 minutes in a rallying cry for all to have equal rights….

The March on Washington for Freedom and Jobs was meant to support the Civil Rights Act, which President John F. Kennedy was attempting to pass through Congress. The act called for an expanded Civil Rights Commission, the desegregation of public schools and other locations and voting rights protections for Black Americans.

On the day of the march, more than 250,000 people walked from the Washington Monument to the Lincoln Memorial. Cronkite remarked that the march sometimes looked “more like a parade of signs than of people,” as marchers carried signs calling for equality and the end of police brutality.

Along the parade route was CBS News correspondent Dave Dugan. He called the enthusiasm of the march “contagious,” with older attendees “taking it rather relaxed and calmly” and younger marchers singing freedom songs like “We Shall Overcome,” bubbling with energy and “exuberance.”

The Civil Rights Act was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 2, 1964, after Kennedy’s assassination in Dallas in November of 1963. It outlawed discrimination based on race, sex and other protected classes, prohibited discrimination against voters of color and racial segregation in schools. It would be one of the most important legislative bills passed in American history.

NBC News: 60th March on Washington event merges Black America’s current concerns with history.

WASHINGTON, D.C.— As a teenager in 1963, Ann Breedlove rode in a caravan of buses and cars from Albany, Georgia, to the March on Washington. It took more than a day, she said, but the journey proved to be pivotal.

It was then that she learned of the power of fighting for justice, a cause she has taken up for the last six decades.

gettyimages-2674125On Saturday, Breedlove was back in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial for the 60th anniversary of the March on Washington. Her feelings on being there were mixed.

“I see many little children and young people walking around here and they will remember this day as a day that they were present for something that mattered,” said Breedlove, who now lives in Atlanta. “That’s what it was like for me. I wasn’t into social justice as a teenager. But coming to the march changed me. And that’s what this can do for these children here.”

The parade of dozens of speakers, each addressed many of the same concerns of the Aug. 28, 1963, March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, speaking to the progress yet to be made. The emphasis then was multi-pronged: end segregation; strengthen voting rights; improved public education; fair wages and civil rights. It was a watershed moment in the Civil Rights movement, marked by Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Have A Dream” speech, the most famous of the dynamic orator’s addresses.

Saturday was billed as a “continuation, not a commemoration,” hosted by a number of organizations, including Al Sharpton’s National Action Network and the Drum Major Institute, which is modeled after King’s principles. The speakers addressed some of the aforementioned issues, along with the added concerns over Black history being scrubbed from K-12 education, the chipping away of abortion access, the Supreme Court abolishing race-conscious college admissions, and a reversal on LGBTQ rights.

“It’s a shift, a change that has taken place,” Breedlove said. “It’s too bad we are still talking about these issues. But our leaders and Black people are speaking louder. We’re tired — sick and tired — of asking for justice. It’s time to fight back. I’m a great grandmother who remembers the Ku Klux Klan raiding our house and us having to get under the bed when they came on their horses. Today is different. That’s not happening. But we still are getting it in different ways.”

“Our voices are going to be louder than the politicians,” she added, “who are not doing what they need to do to help us.”

Another speaker at the 1963 march was a young John Lewis. An opinion piece by Rutgers history professor David Greenberg at The New York Times: How John Lewis Saved the March on Washington.

The tides of history sand down complex events to smooth, shiny baubles, and the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom — whose 60th anniversary arrives Monday, Aug. 28 — is no exception.

This oversimplification of history is at work not only with respect to Martin Luther King’s historic speech, which decried persistent Black poverty before dreaming of racial harmony, but also that of John Lewis, at 23 the march’s youngest speaker. Anointed a veritable saint before his death in 2020, Lewis was regarded back then as an enfant terrible fronting a headstrong new generation of rebels. Neither caricature quite captures the principled yet pragmatic Lewis, whose 1963 speech bluntly assailed deficiencies in the civil rights bill others were championing — but who succeeded in doing so without undermining the day’s unity.

Lewis’s experience with his controversial speech offers us a window onto the competing political pressures at work — the tricky context of an evolving protest movement groping for the right mix of defiance and accommodation. Striking such a delicate balance remains a challenge and an imperative for protest movements pushing for social change today.

That John Lewis even spoke at the March on Washington was something of a fluke. Only weeks earlier, he had been tapped as chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, a fledgling body formed during the lunch-counter sit-ins of 1960. Of all SNCC’s units, Lewis’s Nashville chapter was the most thoroughly steeped in Gandhian nonviolence, and among the Nashvillians Lewis had imbibed those teachings most completely. After the Nashville movement forced the city to thoroughly integrate its public facilities in May 1963, Lewis — with his earnest, gentle demeanor and unimpeachable devotion to peaceful methods — was a natural choice to become SNCC’s public face.

A bit more:

Even as those methods led that spring to major victories in Nashville and (more famously) Birmingham, however, discontent with the Gandhian ways was mounting. The Birmingham campaign spawned demonstrations in 200 cities nationwide, and while many proceeded peacefully, some — such as in Cambridge, Md. — turned violent, sparking fears of mass mayhem that summer.

200219160716-01-john-lewis-1963-restrictedMedia commentators now spoke of the “new militancy.” King would use this ambiguous term in his March on Washington speech. To some, like Lewis, militance meant not a renunciation of nonviolence but an intensification of protest, the adoption of a defiant edge. But rivals of King’s such as Representative Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and Malcolm X threatened that rioting would rock America’s streets if the government didn’t act on civil rights.

Partly to stave off violence, President John F. Kennedy announced a sweeping civil rights bill that June. At that moment, too, the movement elders A. Philip Randolph and Bayard Rustin were lining up co-sponsors for the Washington march. Many of SNCC’s young radicals balked, fearing it would be, Lewis later recalled, “a lame event, organized by the cautious, conservative traditional power structure of Black America.” But Lewis, an inveterate optimist, naturally inclined to cooperate and compromise, was for it.

On June 22, Lewis — who just several years earlier had been living with nine siblings in a shotgun shack on an Alabama farm — joined some 30 civil rights honchos in the White House Cabinet Room to meet with the president. Kennedy intended to dissuade them from holding the march, which, because of the outbursts earlier that summer, he feared might turn destructive.

Awed to be in such august company, Lewis stayed silent through the meeting. But King, Randolph and others made clear that the march would take place. Kennedy acquiesced and then pivoted, spending the rest of the summer trying to turn the gathering into a rally to pass his bill.

SNCC, meanwhile, scored its own victory. Once shut out of meetings of the major civil rights groups, it now won recognition as one of the six main march sponsors. That meant a speaking slot for Lewis before an audience immeasurably larger than he had ever addressed.

I don’t dare post any more. Read the whole thing at the NYT.

That’s the end of my trip down memory lane. The real anniversary is tomorrow.

Take care everyone!

Monday Reads: Two Days until the Tumor is gone, but what about the Cancer?

Posted: January 18, 2021 | Author: | Filed under: white nationalists | Tags: , , | 12 Comments

Nick Anderson / Hearst papers

Good Day Sky Dancers!

I feel like we’re in this place of being close to the road to normalcy, competency, and the end of lies and malignancy in the White House. On the other hand, we face this angry white nationalist insurgency which is trying everything it can to remain relevant.  State and Federal buildings–where the peoples’ business takes place–have a heavy military presence.

In the District, National Guard have undergone a sweeping background check to ensure none of the guard present have a background that shows any form of radicalization.   They’re calling this a layered scrub because it involves all kinds of federal agencies as well as the military.  This is via WAPO.

Maj. Gen. William J. Walker, commanding general of the D.C. National Guard, said in an interview with Defense One that the screening represented an “extra layer” of security for this deployment, on top of the continuous monitoring that the U.S. military does of its service members.

“For this deployment everybody is screened additionally, but it’s more of a reassurance, because we do everything we can do [to] know our Guardsmen, our soldiers and airmen,” Walker said.

Army Secretary Ryan D. McCarthy, who is overseeing the D.C. Guard and the military’s preparations for the inauguration, said in an interview with the Associated Press that so far the vetting process hasn’t flagged any issues with the troops coming to help protect the inauguration.

We’re also seeing these things: “FBI moves on alleged members of extremist groups Oath Keepers, Three Percenters”.  This is also from WAPO.

A heavy-metal guitarist, the alleged leader of a Colorado paramilitary training group and two self-styled militia members from Ohio have been charged with taking part in the riot at the Capitol last week, as the FBI ratchets up its investigation into the role extremist groups played in storming the building.

Jon Schaffer, an Indiana musician, turned himself in to the FBI on Sunday afternoon, officials said. On Jan. 6, Schaffer was photographed inside the Capitol, wearing a hat that said “Oath Keepers Lifetime Member.” Schaffer founded Iced Earth, a heavy-metal band, and music fans quickly recognized him as the FBI circulated wanted posters with his face on them.

Schaffer was charged with six counts, including engaging in an act of physical violence. Authorities said Schaffer was among the rioters who targeted U.S. Capitol Police with bear spray.

Also charged in a court filing made public Sunday was Robert Gieswein, 24, of Cripple Creek, Colo. Court papers say that Gieswein is affiliated with an Oath Keepers-related extremist group called the Three Percenters, and that he assaulted federal officers outside the Capitol with bear spray and a baseball bat; “encouraged other rioters as they broke a window of the Capitol building; entered … and then charged through the Capitol building.”

Gieswein runs a private paramilitary training group called the Woodland Wild Dogs, and a patch for that group was visible on a tactical vest he wore during the attack on Congress, an FBI affidavit said.

Gieswein gave a media interview in which he echoed anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, the affidavit said, and said his message to Congress was “that they need to get the corrupt politicians out of office. Pelosi, the Clintons … every single one of them, Biden, Kamala.”

There was evidently something burning in one of the tunnels.  Fortunately, this was the fire from a homeless encampment and not something worse.

I’m also seeing signs that these militia morons maybe trying to mount false flag attacks at state capitols.  I imagine these cosplayers are going to get played up as some ANTIFA leftists but tell me, have you ever seen a liberal or progressive activists in militia attire loaded down with semi automatic long guns?

These pictures are from the Michigan State Capitol.  Go to the Deadpool thread and you’ll see close up pix of 1776 badges.  Not even the leftwing activists of the’60s and ’70s wore paramilitary outfits. This is clearly to provide the Fox nasties like Sean Hannity and worse with pix that he can mislabel.  Is this the start of a Reich stag

State troopers swing billy clubs to break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Ala., March 7, 1965. John Lewis, chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (in the foreground) is being beaten by a state trooper. Lewis, a future U.S. Congressman sustained a fractured skull. (unknown/AP)
This is a peaceful protest turned into a Police Riot.

Trump Allies definitely helped with the Capitol Hill Riot via (AP).

Members of President Donald Trump’s failed presidential campaign played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol, according to an Associated Press review of records, undercutting claims the event was the brainchild of the president’s grassroots supporters.

A pro-Trump nonprofit group called Women for America First hosted the “Save America Rally” on Jan. 6 at the Ellipse, an oval-shaped, federally owned patch of land near the White House. But an attachment to the National Park Service public gathering permit granted to the group lists more than half a dozen people in staff positions for the event who just weeks earlier had been paid thousands of dollars by Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. Other staff scheduled to be “on site” during the demonstration have close ties to the White House.

Since the siege, several of them have scrambled to distance themselves from the rally.

The riot at the Capitol, incited by Trump’s comments before and during his speech at the Ellipse, has led to a reckoning unprecedented in American history. The president told the crowd to march to the Capitol and that “you’ll never take back our country with weakness. You have to show strength, and you have to be strong.”

johnlewisedmundpettisbridge640

In tribute to John Lewis: Renew the Voting Rights Act this year!!!

And today is a Federal Holiday. We’re celebrating the legacy of Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr. while fending off insurrectionists that are basically the sons of the NeoConfederacy.  Trump is readying 100s of pardons and it will not be for any one that actually deserves it.  They we all be paying for them or get them because they’ve committed crimes that Trump likes or has commited himself.  Trump has destroyed the rule of law and the American sense of Justice.  This is reported by CNN.

Initially, two major batches had been ready to roll out, one at the end of last week and one on Tuesday. Now, officials expect the last batch to be the only one — unless Trump decides at the last minute to grant pardons to controversial allies, members of his family or himself.

The final batch of clemency actions is expected to include a mix of criminal justice reform-minded pardons and more controversial ones secured or doled out to political allies.

The pardons are one of several items Trump must complete before his presidency ends in days. White House officials also still have executive orders prepared, and the President is still hopeful to declassify information related to the Russia probe before he leaves office. But with a waning number of administration officials still in jobs, the likelihood that any of it gets done seemed to be shrinking.

The January 6 riots that led to Trump’s second impeachment have complicated his desire to pardon himself, his kids and personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. At this point, aides do not think he will do so, but caution only Trump knows what he will do with his last bit of presidential power before he is officially out of office at noon on January 20.

This is a peaceful protest with police presence. A young boy greets police officers in riot gear during a march in Maryland. (LUCAS JACKSON/REUTERS)

Noon on Wednesday is the time and day we should be rid of this monster.  I expect a period of insurgency starts on that day  However, we also have these things to look forward too.

U.S. president-elect Joe Biden has indicated plans to cancel the Keystone XL pipeline permit via executive action on his first day in office, sources tell CBC News..

You can read more about this at the NYT.

Via WAPO:  Facebook, Google to face tougher regulation under Biden anda Democratic-controlled Senate.

Even before he won the White House, Joe Biden had been unsparing in his criticism of Silicon Valley, practically pleading with Facebook in June to stop President Trump from publishing “wild claims.”

“Anything less,” the Biden campaign said in an open letter, “will render Facebook a tool of misinformation that corrodes our democracy.”

Seven months later, rioters descended on the U.S. Capitol, stormed the House and the Senate, and sought to overturn Biden’s victory — mounting a deadly, failed insurrection that illustrated the corrosive power of Trump’s false online screeds.

The aftermath of that attack now sets the stage for a political reckoning between Washington and Silicon Valley, as long-simmering frustrations with Facebook, Google, Twitter and their digital peers threaten to unleash the most aggressive regulatory assault against the tech industry in its history. On the eve of his inauguration, Biden and Democratic leaders in Congress are pledging to take aim at the country’s largest social media platforms out of concern that they imperil the very fabric of American democracy — and the billions of people who use these digital services every day.

DC cop assaulted in Capitol riots, shocking images show. These are violent insurrectionists and this is a violence-filled riot where Police are being harmed and killed.

And the MLK holiday is generally seen as a day where we should provide service to our community. I’m planning on filling up my neighborhood fridge as much as I can and then will be delivering what children’s books I can find remaining in my house to the nearest little library. I wish I could set up a huge foundation but I’m just a little old semi retired prof.

Celebrating Martin Luther King Jr. Day might have a different meaning for many this year.

There will be no events at the MLK Memorial in Washington, D.C. because the National Mall is closed.

Also, America bid farewell to civil rights activists and King’s friend John Lewis in 2020.

MLK Day, celebrated each year on the third Monday in January, became a national celebration on January 20, 1986.

It was signed into law by then President Ronald Reagan.

On August 23, 1994, President Bill Clinton signed the Martin Luther King Junior Federal Holiday and Service Act.

Events celebrating Dr. King’s achievements are still being held all across the country.

The day is designated to encourage all Americans to volunteer to improve their communities.

Dr. King is widely know for his “I have a dream speech” where he rallied for better race relations.

King also led several marches advocating for the civil and economic rights of African Americans.

Dr. King would have been 92 years old on January 15.

He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee in 1968.

Ask yourselves, what kind of country do we want?  Want kind of vision of American do you have?

My vision was formed early watching the treatment of protestors in the South during King’s movement to get Voting Rights and economic and social justice.  Even as a small child I was horrified by the footage of police officers sending dogs after the peaceful marchers.  I also remember that famous picture of the National Guard shooting and killing war protestors at Kent State.  What we saw last week  was a riot has nothing to do with protesting anything but the ability to be hateful and selfish.

I really hope the Capitol Riot has an impact on young children and a small voice in them screams this is not what we want to be when we grow up. This is basically what my thoughts  were as I saw police officers turn powerful fire hoses on kids my age.  It is also what I thought when I saw Ruby Bridges try to get to the first day of school in New Orleans in 1960.  I was hoping my first day at kindergarten was not going to look like that.  The ugly hateful faces on all those white people and a girl my age surrounded by federal officers for protection just to go to school!!

In a matter of minutes, Senator Kamala Harris will become Kamala Harris and then on Wednesday she will become Vice President Kamala Harris.  Lawrence interviewed Ruby Bridges about this iconic painting last night.  You can watch it here.

Ruby Bridges was six years old when she was the first Black student at her New Orleans elementary school. She tells Lawrence O’Donnell that the inauguration of Vice President-elect Kamala Harris has renewed hope and faith in the U.S. “There’s so much more work to be done, but we have to also be able to look at the strives that we make and this is truly one for all women and especially for Black women.”

Hang on there. We’ve made it through trouble before.  We can plow through this deep shit again together.

What’s on your reading and blogging list today?  “How long must we sing this song?”

Monday Reflections on Martin Luther King

Posted: January 15, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , | 20 Comments

Good Morning Sky Dancers!

Today’s the day we celebrate the contributions of Dr. Martin Luther King and the inspiration of his life, sacrifice, and commitment to civil rights.

I woke up today thinking about the country and neighborhood that I was born into and grew up in.  My father was a Ford Dealer in small town Iowa and I spent my first nursery and grade school years there.  Eisenhower was president when I was born.  JFK was the first president I remember.  I was in second grade when he was assassinated. My second grade teacher came into our classroom with tears to announce it. The first election I remember was between LBJ and Goldwater.

I remember watching two things on the nightly news that was a ritual for our family. The struggle for civil rights unfolding in the south and the reports of the Vietnam war occupied much black and white air time.  Both were horrifying.  I ended my pre-college years in Omaha across the river spending the last years of high school watching the Watergate hearings. I graduated and shortly thereafter, the president resigned.  This is the time line of a baby-boomer born right in the middle times.

The most clear thing that stood out to me as I was growing up and into adulthood where I took my place in the women’s movement and then in the fight against AIDS and discrimination against GLBT was that at the very heart of everything was our creed that  all were ‘created  equal’ and endowed with ‘inalienable’ rights. No one’s life was lived with that creed more in mind than the Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King.  I also remember the day he was assassinated and trying to get to my grandfather’s place in Kansas City the long way around the riots.  Some time it takes more sacrifice and anger than we should have to muster to realize those rights.  That was 50 years ago.

Looking back at the Obama presidency and the hope I had that Hillary would also be a first, I remember those days as a kid when the holiday we celebrated was President’s day.  We celebrated Lincoln who saved the Union and freed the slaves.  We celebrated George Washington who could not tell a lie.  Through all of this, my young heart got the message that Presidents could be flawed but the great ones did not lie.  They sought the freedom and dignity that all of us deserved.  They fought in the war against NAZIS and fascism to preserve and establish freedom and dignity for others. They sent Federal Troops to places in America where black men were murdered and black people were denied their basic rights as US citizens because that’s what moved the fight for freedom and dignity along in this country.

The Presidents we celebrated as children were honest and true to our values.  They were celebrated for their humble beginnings, their military service, and–in many cases–their great minds. They established national parks to protect our nation’s lands and created the EPA. Nixon went to China.  Reagan sought out the Soviets to decrease the threat of annihilation by nuclear weapons.  Barack Obama stands in many ways as a monument to the work of King but will most likely be seen as a bright and moral man who led us out of dark economic times with a level head while seeking the establishment of health care for all.

We most often associate Dr King with his “I have a dream” speech and his letters from the Birmingham jail.  But, this was also a man who fought for the dignity of garbage collectors to have a living wage for an honest day’s work.  Our patriotic days celebrate traits of Presidents and heroes fighting for and establishing our shared values. We celebrate their establishment and furtherance as much as we celebrate the men themselves. (This is also why we need a few more patriotic holidays that enfranchise our women heroes and our indigenous peoples. Hint: NO MORE COLUMBUS DAYS)

The deal is this, I always thought that when they told us those stories of “anyone can become” president that it didn’t mean that it was an anyone that “lied”, avoided military service, ruined relations with allies, praised fascists, and gave speeches vilifying those among us that couldn’t join the Klan and recognizing goods on sides for which good does not exist in the American framework.

My children are grown and I no longer have to pass along the country’s folklore. I’m glad because what we see in the placeholder in the oval office today is anathema to all those lessons I learned during the celebration of President’s day in my grade schools and that both my daughters learned in their grade school classrooms during the celebration of MLK day.  Kremlin KKKaligula chops down cherry trees every day and lies about it. Kremlin KKKaligula seeks to send our minorities back into servitude. His speeches are of Dreams of White Supremacy.  He is way beyond a flawed man.  He daily violates  our shared values and looks towards their destruction.

He has to go.  One way or another. Many people sacrificed so we could vote and this is the year that we show Martin Luther King that his fight to get voting rights and that his sacrifices were not in vain. I usually think of my grandmothers when I vote because I know they could not vote until well into their middle age.  This November, I will hold up the promise of Dr Martin Luther King’s Dream and vote for everything that he lived and died for.   Join me and get others to do so too.  We need not just a blue wave. We need a rainbow wave. We need a colors of the earth wave.

Here are some reads that you might like.

From Electric Literature:  “11 Incredible Books by Writers from ‘Shithole’ Countries. Let’s celebrate just a few of the amazing authors the president says he wouldn’t want in the U.S.”

But it’s a good reminder to celebrate the work of writers from Africa, and from Haiti, El Salvador, and other protected-status countries. As writers, readers, and human beings, we would all be intellectually impoverished by the lack of these voices. Here are some of our favorite novels, memoirs, and poetry by authors from the countries Trump disdains, many of whom celebrate their complicated homelands in their work.

And, from a patron of the Seattle Public Library: “Sh**hole Countries”: a Reading List.”

Our sh*t-for-brains 45th President doesn’t read, but you do! Explore some of the places and cultures he’s maligned, learn history he’s ignorant of, and see the world through the eyes of people whose lives he regards as worthless. Resist hate-mongering and race-baiting, and experience the world and your fellow human beings in ways that only someone not wholly devoid of curiosity, empathy, and functional literacy truly can! *Note: This list is not a publication of the Seattle Public Library, nor intended to be presented on its behalf. It was created on a patron account, outside the library, in the same manner that any library patron can do. (I encourage library patrons everywhere to create and share their own lists!) The Bibliocommons software tags all such lists with its creator’s home library. I apologize for any confusion: it was never my intention to present this list on the Library’s behalf.

From New York Magazine and the Jonathan Chait: “Why Republicans Love Dumb Presidents”.

Rather than segregate questions about Trump’s brain away from the broader partisan debate, they dissolve the former into the latter. They believe that Trump’s being called dumb by the intellectual elite is intimately connected to his political identity. This belief is largely correct. As it has moved farther and farther right, the Republican Party has grown increasingly anti-intellectual. Trump’s base adores him, not despite his obvious mental limitations, but because of them.

Two caveats are in order. First, many intelligent people have conservative values, and rationally support the Republican Party. Second, while Trump’s lack of mental aptitude may be similar to that of previous Republican leaders in kind, it is very different in degree. That said, Trump’s flamboyant ignorance and disdain for intellectual standards are very much in keeping with modern conservative politics.

From the SF Chronicle:   “Airbnb loses thousands of hosts in SF as registration rules kick in.”

Thousands of San Francisco hosts on Airbnb and rival home-stay sites have stopped renting their homes and rooms to tourists. Many others are scrambling to register their vacation rentals with the city as a Tuesday deadline looms for Airbnb and HomeAway to kick off unregistered hosts.

From the NYT:

Trump’s Racism, a definitive list. (DAVID LEONHARDT and IAN PRASAD PHILBRICK)

The media often falls back on euphemisms when describing Trump’s comments about race: racially loaded, racially charged, racially tinged, racially sensitive. And Trump himself has claimed that he is “the least racist person.” But here’s the truth: Donald Trump is a racist. He talks about and treats people differently based on their race. He has done so for years, and he is still doing so.

Trump is a Racist, PERIOD.  (CHARLES M.BLOW)

Racism is simply the belief that race is an inherent and determining factor in a person’s or a people’s character and capabilities, rendering some inferior and others superior. These beliefs are racial prejudices.

The history of America is one in which white people used racism and white supremacy to develop a racial caste system that advantaged them and disadvantaged others.

Understanding this, it is not a stretch to understand that Donald Trump’s words and deeds over the course of his life have demonstrated a pattern of expressing racial prejudices that demean people who are black and brown and that play to the racial hostilities of other white people.

The Heartbeat of Racism Is Denial   (IBRAM X. KENDI)

Mental health experts routinely say that denial is among the most common defense mechanisms. Denial is how the person defends his superior sense of self, her racially unequal society.

Denial is how America defends itself as superior to “shithole countries” in Africa and elsewhere, as President Trump reportedly described them in a White House meeting last week, although he has since, well, denied that. It’s also how America defends itself as superior to those “developing countries” in Africa, to quote how liberal opponents of Mr. Trump might often describe them.

Mr. Trump appears to be unifying America — unifying Americans in their denial. The more racist Mr. Trump sounds, the more Trump country denies his racism, and the more his opponents look away from their own racism to brand Trump country as racist. Through it all, America remains a unified country of denial.
The reckoning of Mr. Trump’s racism must become the reckoning of American racism. Because the American creed of denial — “I’m not a racist” — knows no political parties, no ideologies, no colors, no regions.

So, what do we tell our American children? What does the world tell theirs about US?

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