I heard an overwhelming response and woke up from the dream. The future, it seems, will be a nightmare.

I am probably striking out here, I think because I have not heard a bit of enthusiasm for my ideas concerning something akin to radical action in the form of a massive general strike or even a meaningful discourse toward action in the form of a push to find our way to becoming a humane society.  I know that there are already in place organizations and movements and there have been actions taken like the one I participated in when Jeff Sessions came to town but, really, I continue to see things getting worse very quickly and, no matter how bad things get, those who know how bad it is relying on the same old ineffectual reactions that didn’t save us from getting to where we now are.

I am not saying that my ideas for actions are necessarily best but I offer then at this moment in time because, if for no other reason, to provoke the kind of conversation that might get us somewhere so we can again be able to see hope for a better future.  For me, the current reality is intolerable and I feel like I am–and I am–contributing to the inhumane actions of an inhumane government.  Every time I withdraw from my retirement account, 20% is deducted.  That is my financial contribution to crimes against humanity.

Our collective contribution is our inaction or, at best, our mild response to a humanitarian crisis created in our name and payed for by our taxes.  Doing nothing or doing just a little–and that is what I am doing, a little–is, in my mind, complicity and I cannot stand being complicit in what is happening to real people as I sit here begging others to join me in doing something.

I alone am no good, no good in the sense that no action I take alone–well, I can think of some that have worked but I am not willing to sit on a street and burn myself to death–will have even the slightest chance of moving things in even the slightest of way.  I recycle because I believe that many others recycle and that this does make a difference.  I could refuse to pay taxes and go to jail and hardly anyone would much care let alone do something to get me freed.  I am not important enough that my arrest for civil disobedience would even make news.

I do not care to be a martyr.  I am not into martyrdom.  At all.  But I am wanting badly to be a part of some truly meaningful change bringing action that might have a chance to move us even a little step toward making things better.

I sincerely think that we need to strike out against the current order and I think this can only be done by bringing on disorder.  If we do not do such than the new order proceeds to do what it is doing in an orderly way and their way of doing things becomes the new and accepted normal.  Consider how daily body counts and huge the huge prison population have become just what happens here, no more, no less.  Or the taking of property by banks and loan companies after the banking industry with a helping hand from the government–the “people’s government”–destroyed the economy and made the people, not the banks, pay for what had been done.  We have accepted as normal low pay for teacher and the lack of access to decent medical care for many.  We still have the death penalty–who thinks it extraordinary to hear the some prisoner has been “humanely” executed?

Much that is bad has been normalized already.  Our president tried to make palatable the behavior of neo-Nazis and sexual predators.  I listened to MSMBC today and they did what they could to be properly objective and, in doing so, helped to normalize this president by treating him and his views with respect.

Things are not normal.  Or maybe they are and if they are than the normal needs to be seriously disrupted.

I have shared my ideas.

The American Principles Campaign

This is what Frank Cannon, the leader of the American Principles Campaign has to say about what principles mean to him:

After Justice Antonin Scalia passed away that February, President Obama swiftly nominated Merrick Garland to take his place on the Supreme Court. Scalia, a solid conservative, would be replaced by a progressive, and the makeup of the Court would be decisively shifted in the left’s favor. The media and progressive activists lauded Garland’s credentials and urged McConnell to confirm him immediately.

McConnell understood that he had a choice to make. In Article II of the Constitution, the Senate is granted the authority to provide “advice and consent” to the president on judicial nominations. Perhaps in a slight to Senator Harry Reid, who had eliminated the judicial filibuster for non-Supreme Court judicial nominees in 2013 and made the process much more partisan, McConnell decided to strip Obama of the Senate’s “consent” and hold off on considering a Supreme Court nominee until after the presidential election

McConnell drew fire from the media and outrage among pundits and activists on the left, but he held the line knowing the future of the Supreme Court — and the outcome of a number of issues conservatives cared deeply about, such as abortion, guns, and free speech — hung in the balance. His resolve helped drive incredible turnout among a Republican base that understood the election’s considerably high stakes. And based on exit polling, it is not an overstatement to say that McConnell’s decision to delay filling Scalia’s seat was a deciding factor in the election of President Trump.

This is why I do not think that we can either vote our way out of the mess we are in or write letter or conduct a thousand marches.  This is the mindset that must be changed but it is a self-serving mindset that has everything to do with those who have getting more–forever.  To accomplish this goal, anything is fair that moves this agenda along and anything that stands in its way destroyed including law that is fair and legislation that is truly for the common good rather than for the greedy.


Incivility in the face of inhumanity and insanity

About issues of civility
Maybe the truth of the matter is that we are not debating and negotiating any more. We are in the midst of a war, a civil war. Those on the other side are the other side’s enemy and not their fellow citizens. An ugly truth? But genuine truth? I have come to think so. How can one deal diplomatically with those who support policies that bring misery to other human beings? We have negotiated with such people for a very long time, allowed many to be sacrificed as we negotiated. What that negotiating has led to is Trump. End of discussion.

Likes dictators and






You can see where this is going, right?


Law and order will put down anarchy, the both as translated by Donald J. Trump.

Spewing is what one does when he or she is ill. I, yes, have been spewing all day

A tweet by John Nichols to add to the spew.

John Nichols Retweeted Merriam-Webster
