I feel like our “protest organizations” such as Indivisible and NoKings are also hopelessly out of touch with what’s really going on. They’re still planning a rally for the end of the month when action is needed right now, this coming weekend if not sooner; a general strike and mass protest. I feel like a lone voice in the wilderness.
Indivisible is far more than a "protest organization." Have you joined your local chapter? The national leadership is focused on building the infrastructure to be able to coordinate general strikes. It takes organization and preparation. At present Indivisible is at the vanguard of that. Stop being a lone voice. Join.
I have joined Indivisible, and their response to the ongoing crisis in our government has been weak at best. Indivisible feels just as triangulating as our media.
You've attended local meetings, and helped organize action? Our obvious choices are either to organize, or just hope everyone spontaneously decides on individual actions that by some miracle coordinate. Can you point to a third road?
Didn’t Socrates say courage is the highest form of virtue? And to have courage we need to understand, have knowledge of the world we live in?
I’m no philosopher but it is courage that is in dire need. Courage to look through the glass darkly and realize what the situation is right now. That obscurity is a powerful force upon us. And courage to see reality as it really is. To see trump for what he is. To cut through the distraction and fake images and lies.
United we stand. Divided we fall is a siren warning. The emergency is upon us.
I disagree with the analogy. This is not learned helplessness, if anything it is opposite of that. This is the dnc married to a reagan-lite machine since 1982. They have refused to budge from that revenue producing stream and have kicked out anyone who didn't conform. Now we are left with what has routinely appeared to be no strategists, but a lot of ego. Congress can get up and do the job for which they get paid [by us, not israel etc], or they can resign.
If everyone is going to bitch about all of this, but still won't cancel all the subscriptions they pay to the corps who drive this, and insist on spending money in stores that support trump, then really they get the gov't they deserve. The rest of the world doesn't deserve it, but they are used to us; it's probably not their first rodeo, no matter how we frame this internally. Granted it could be our last, so there is that...
I keep reading this call to action made by bloggers everywhere to us who are sitting in our dens at home reading their wise words. I vote, I protest, I write my elected officials who are all Republicans and so ignore every correspondence they get from me. I post my disagreement with the regime on social media. I no longer sit with civility through conversations about what is happening to America. I've even broken out my history books to remind myself of how we did it during the American Revolution. But the reality is that I don't have automatic rifles or drones or tanks or missles and that is ultimately what it will take and where we are headed. Only the people who actually know how to take over a country are going to be able to set things right. That will be our military - which way are they going to fall? Being part of the resistance in today's world is much more difficult and perilous than it was 85 years ago or 249 years ago. This has gone too far to sort it with votes because the Republicans are not going to let that happen. They do not sanctify life. Their gods are power and greed and they are firmly in control.
Thank you for this comment. I'm choking on the amount of "why aren't you doing anything???" posts directed at people who write "why aren't you doing anything???" posts.
Precisely. “What does the moment require?” ‘He who hesitates is lost’ (in optics, in polls, in fear of losing a seat in Congress before realizing that the greater threat is losing our democracy). Complacency, Citizens United, cushy perks have brought us here, and We The People must lead us out and onward. What we have morphed into is not worth saving, but the best parts of what we could be are.
This is exactly what plagues my heart and mind every day and every night. It’s what I seek to write about in my poor, clumsy way. Mike, you hit the target so well.
The messaging within the US military is that this strike on Iran is specifically an attempt to fulfill the conditions of the prophecies in the Book of Revelation. (Among which is the final extermination of the Jews, through forced conversion to Christianity, or death--mostly the latter.)
I feel like our “protest organizations” such as Indivisible and NoKings are also hopelessly out of touch with what’s really going on. They’re still planning a rally for the end of the month when action is needed right now, this coming weekend if not sooner; a general strike and mass protest. I feel like a lone voice in the wilderness.
Indivisible is far more than a "protest organization." Have you joined your local chapter? The national leadership is focused on building the infrastructure to be able to coordinate general strikes. It takes organization and preparation. At present Indivisible is at the vanguard of that. Stop being a lone voice. Join.
I have joined Indivisible, and their response to the ongoing crisis in our government has been weak at best. Indivisible feels just as triangulating as our media.
You've attended local meetings, and helped organize action? Our obvious choices are either to organize, or just hope everyone spontaneously decides on individual actions that by some miracle coordinate. Can you point to a third road?
You convinced me to do so. Thank you.
Excellent!
Didn’t Socrates say courage is the highest form of virtue? And to have courage we need to understand, have knowledge of the world we live in?
I’m no philosopher but it is courage that is in dire need. Courage to look through the glass darkly and realize what the situation is right now. That obscurity is a powerful force upon us. And courage to see reality as it really is. To see trump for what he is. To cut through the distraction and fake images and lies.
United we stand. Divided we fall is a siren warning. The emergency is upon us.
I disagree with the analogy. This is not learned helplessness, if anything it is opposite of that. This is the dnc married to a reagan-lite machine since 1982. They have refused to budge from that revenue producing stream and have kicked out anyone who didn't conform. Now we are left with what has routinely appeared to be no strategists, but a lot of ego. Congress can get up and do the job for which they get paid [by us, not israel etc], or they can resign.
If everyone is going to bitch about all of this, but still won't cancel all the subscriptions they pay to the corps who drive this, and insist on spending money in stores that support trump, then really they get the gov't they deserve. The rest of the world doesn't deserve it, but they are used to us; it's probably not their first rodeo, no matter how we frame this internally. Granted it could be our last, so there is that...
I was born in the Republic and by God I will die in the Republic.
Learned helplessness. So well said. The portal beckons us all and we need to walk through it.
I keep reading this call to action made by bloggers everywhere to us who are sitting in our dens at home reading their wise words. I vote, I protest, I write my elected officials who are all Republicans and so ignore every correspondence they get from me. I post my disagreement with the regime on social media. I no longer sit with civility through conversations about what is happening to America. I've even broken out my history books to remind myself of how we did it during the American Revolution. But the reality is that I don't have automatic rifles or drones or tanks or missles and that is ultimately what it will take and where we are headed. Only the people who actually know how to take over a country are going to be able to set things right. That will be our military - which way are they going to fall? Being part of the resistance in today's world is much more difficult and perilous than it was 85 years ago or 249 years ago. This has gone too far to sort it with votes because the Republicans are not going to let that happen. They do not sanctify life. Their gods are power and greed and they are firmly in control.
Thank you for this comment. I'm choking on the amount of "why aren't you doing anything???" posts directed at people who write "why aren't you doing anything???" posts.
Precisely. “What does the moment require?” ‘He who hesitates is lost’ (in optics, in polls, in fear of losing a seat in Congress before realizing that the greater threat is losing our democracy). Complacency, Citizens United, cushy perks have brought us here, and We The People must lead us out and onward. What we have morphed into is not worth saving, but the best parts of what we could be are.
This is exactly what plagues my heart and mind every day and every night. It’s what I seek to write about in my poor, clumsy way. Mike, you hit the target so well.
https://jonathanlarsen.substack.com/p/us-troops-were-told-iran-war-is-for
The messaging within the US military is that this strike on Iran is specifically an attempt to fulfill the conditions of the prophecies in the Book of Revelation. (Among which is the final extermination of the Jews, through forced conversion to Christianity, or death--mostly the latter.)
Original Estate