Positives are happening now - critical mass starting to change our future for the better
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Lisa Holliday
Copied from a friend. If you are feeling weary, this is the antidote. Not sure the author(s).
You know, it's a truly insane roller-coaster of a time, and I understand that it is making a lot of people dizzy and sick and the change fell out of a lot of peoples' pockets. But it's also pretty amazing. This morning the president got nailed as a liar and obstructor of justice while the whole world watched. A bunch of Mormon women have switched party alignment and gotten behind undocumented immigrants. Indivisible's 6000+ branches are building the foundation for big change in the midterms. The world is uniting to move forward on climate change without the US federal government; inside the USA, states and cities, 279 cities representing almost 60 million people at last count, are also going along with the Paris accords. France elected a climate-conscious guy. The United Kingdom is rejecting the Tories. The judiciary system keeps rejecting the Muslim ban and a number of Republican voter-suppression and gerrymandering schemes have been overturned.
Rachel Maddow is the queen of Cable TV, beating out a declining Fox, because people are hungry for what she has to tell them. Kamala Harris, the second black woman ever in the Senate, is warming up the frying pan and gently nudging Jeff Sessions into the oil. Whatever you think of the Democratic Party as a whole, a bunch of them are doing good work right now. Nevada sent the first Latina senator ever to the pallid senate, and Catherine Cortez Masto is standing up for everything from reproductive rights to public land. Maxine Waters isn't a queen; she's an empress right now, speaking so much fierce truth to so much corrupt power (and nudging giant white boys outta her way with panache). There are some real heroes out there. People who are in the limelight and everyday people doing their work quietly.
And it's turning out to be not as much fun to be right wing as they thought it would be. They haven't yet destroyed the ACA and they're finding out just how unpopular trying to do that is (and people need to ramp up telling their reps to defend it). Franken says Republicans are scared, caught in a lot of dilemmas, and with today's extraordinary hearings, they may be more so, not sure how to align themselves with a crumbling administration. Jared Kushner is in hot water. There are about seven investigations into this Russian/collusion business, and we don't have to waste time on people who think it's imaginary any more. Jason Chaffetz saw the writing on the wall and quit, and a bunch of Republicans are on the lam from their constituents. Bill O'Reilly was forced out. Hannity lost a ton of his advertisers when his bullshit about Seth Rich fell on his own head (that's what it's like on rollercoasters). Roger Ailes died in disgrace after being forced out by a bunch of women supporting each other in testifying that he was a grotesque monster and Fox was a gulag-brothel. What the Republicans sought to clothe so elegantly is out in all its squalid nakedness now: the lies are naked, the cruelty is naked, and the destructiveness is naked. That's helpful; we're done having to make the case that they serve the billionaires and the banks, serve whiteness and patriarchy. The lines are clearly drawn.
This is a historic moment. I keep hearing people predict the future, often glumly, with the false certainty that is pernicious to any real engagement. Here's what you have to remember. The future is not written; it's ours to make, but if we do nothing we will get nothing or worse than nothing. In this moment of utter turmoil, civil society must be the counter to a rogue administration. A crisis, says one dictionary, is “the point in the progress of a disease when a change takes place which is decisive of recovery or death; also, any marked or sudden change of symptoms, etc.”
Together we have the power to shape the future; together we are more than a counterweight to the crumbling power of the Trump administration that fails to understand the nature of power. I see a lot of beauty in the principle and the passion of the people around me and beyond right now; I see a citizenry (and that means everyone who lives here whatever their status) rising up. I don't see the future, but I see extraordinary possibilities.
With Annabel Park and Bob Fulkerson
Rachel Maddow is the queen of Cable TV, beating out a declining Fox, because people are hungry for what she has to tell them. Kamala Harris, the second black woman ever in the Senate, is warming up the frying pan and gently nudging Jeff Sessions into the oil. Whatever you think of the Democratic Party as a whole, a bunch of them are doing good work right now. Nevada sent the first Latina senator ever to the pallid senate, and Catherine Cortez Masto is standing up for everything from reproductive rights to public land. Maxine Waters isn't a queen; she's an empress right now, speaking so much fierce truth to so much corrupt power (and nudging giant white boys outta her way with panache). There are some real heroes out there. People who are in the limelight and everyday people doing their work quietly.
And it's turning out to be not as much fun to be right wing as they thought it would be. They haven't yet destroyed the ACA and they're finding out just how unpopular trying to do that is (and people need to ramp up telling their reps to defend it). Franken says Republicans are scared, caught in a lot of dilemmas, and with today's extraordinary hearings, they may be more so, not sure how to align themselves with a crumbling administration. Jared Kushner is in hot water. There are about seven investigations into this Russian/collusion business, and we don't have to waste time on people who think it's imaginary any more. Jason Chaffetz saw the writing on the wall and quit, and a bunch of Republicans are on the lam from their constituents. Bill O'Reilly was forced out. Hannity lost a ton of his advertisers when his bullshit about Seth Rich fell on his own head (that's what it's like on rollercoasters). Roger Ailes died in disgrace after being forced out by a bunch of women supporting each other in testifying that he was a grotesque monster and Fox was a gulag-brothel. What the Republicans sought to clothe so elegantly is out in all its squalid nakedness now: the lies are naked, the cruelty is naked, and the destructiveness is naked. That's helpful; we're done having to make the case that they serve the billionaires and the banks, serve whiteness and patriarchy. The lines are clearly drawn.
This is a historic moment. I keep hearing people predict the future, often glumly, with the false certainty that is pernicious to any real engagement. Here's what you have to remember. The future is not written; it's ours to make, but if we do nothing we will get nothing or worse than nothing. In this moment of utter turmoil, civil society must be the counter to a rogue administration. A crisis, says one dictionary, is “the point in the progress of a disease when a change takes place which is decisive of recovery or death; also, any marked or sudden change of symptoms, etc.”
Together we have the power to shape the future; together we are more than a counterweight to the crumbling power of the Trump administration that fails to understand the nature of power. I see a lot of beauty in the principle and the passion of the people around me and beyond right now; I see a citizenry (and that means everyone who lives here whatever their status) rising up. I don't see the future, but I see extraordinary possibilities.
With Annabel Park and Bob Fulkerson
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