I never cease to be amazed when I watch Bella share a snack with the chickens. It really shouldn’t be possible, but they’ve all learned over time that everyone wins when they get along. Elections in our country work the same way. When you pick a candidate to vote for, you’re making a political choice. That’s become the entire focus of our elections; the mostly binary, tribal choice between two foes. But it’s the willingness of people with very different views to work together to make our elections happen that we seem to lose sight of. The principle that existed at the founding of the Republic was this notion that everyone—of course our sense of who “everyone” includes has expanded, with first Black voters and then women getting the franchise—should have a voice in electing our leaders.
Sorry Yeshe: the constitution was written by white, heterosexual, atheist, deist, men, who if they belong to a church at all, joined the Unitarian church, which runs itself more or less like a social justice rights meeting for all… And they wrote a social contract for all citizens: those who couldn’t write or read or attend the meetings. But if you will read Thomas Jefferson’s and other founding fathers’ letters, they wanted ‘We The People,' for whom the constitution was written to be a social contract. They wanted citizens to be literate and educated, and to be able to challenge and confront their elected lawmakers. You can read it all in the Monticello documents, or other libraries in the original forms. Jefferson founded the University of Virginia as a public university to promote literacy for citizens. The ‘rest’ need to get educated, and one can do that without going into a formal institution at all. Then they can do as Jefferson, one of the founding fathers, but representative of all the writers posed: “Challenge and confront.”
They wrote this social contract because they did not want a king. It’s up to each individual, nobody’s going to pour information down anybody’s throat.
The Republicans are now complaining about ‘Biden’s elite educated civil service team’ as if something’s wrong with having an education. These nationalist Republicans remind me of the group that the founding fathers wanted all of the new countries citizens to become. I’m hoping your verbiage about the rest, showing up, means that they are challenging and confronting their elected officials. Your assumption that the founders were Christian shows that the nationalist Christian right wing conservative ‘think tanks’ and others are getting their false message out. They want the American public to believe the founders were Christian, just like them. They were not, and we need to point this out and correct it whenever we see it because they’re trying to form laws based on a Nationalist Christian ideology. Nothing could be further from the truth and nothing points more to revisionist history than this kind of false information: the founders were absolutely unequivocal about separating religion from government. They fought the revolution against the king of England, who was the head of the church of England. When one follows that logic, this is the first place where today’s citizens need to challenge and confront. Religion has no place in the constitution. It never did have a place and it never should.
Hi Deborah, Someone (history) needs to do a dissertation that looks at the backgrounds of the founders. I’m too exhausted at the moment to do another PhD, but I would love someone else to do it. That kind of in depth look would add a valuable piece to the research. Did you happen to know Barbara Clark in your work with giftedness? Or Howard Gardner? (Howard isn’t ‘gifted’ per se, but instead points to the varied intelligences in all of us). My master’s degree was a project for him. Barbara Clark was a
friend of mine:) Both pioneers, and valuable to the field.
The railing against the “educated” goes hand in hand with the glorification of the myth that the founders were Christian, which being children of the Enlightenment they most certainly were not.
Religion thrives preying on the ignorant, and its value shrinks as education spreads . Religion was after all in part a way to explain the mysterious. Why does the sun go away and come back? Why do bad things happen to good people? Science has been demystifying the world of religion as knowledge progresses, and for centuries the purpose of religion has been declining. Now it is only a tool for power and control. The educated people are a threat to the authoritarianism of religion, and our current situation is born of a dying creature refusing to go.
I really see no role for religion that cannot be performed by people with no adherence to it. It is harmful.
I even suspect that that is its true purpose. I know that Islam greatly changed Arabian society, mostly for the better, until the power was established and harnessed. Most people, for example, don't know that burying newborn female babies alive was normal before Islam, as was abandoning widows in the desert to die. The first scholars in Islam were also women, but within 300 years all evidence of it was obliterated and misogyny took over. Religion is an expression of tribalism, on steroids.
Valere, thank you for the wonderful comment. It's a keeper.
I've often thought that religion is just another political system. I think it started as Jen says, a way to explain the natural world, but people who wanted power and control saw an opening to harness the fear and raise themselves to a status to be worshiped.
I think it’s complicated. Many people brainwashed as children and never told this particular Santa isn’t real. For many, a community where it’s harder and harder to find one. A club that is in almost every city, open to strangers when few places are (except bars, as you say).
But in its organization, a tool for control.
And at its foundation, a profound and harmful lie.
A little too much painting-with-a-wide-brush here on the Founders "not being Christian." Many certainly were. The thing to point out today is that so-called experts on the Founders' faith who say they all were Christian and had no interest in separating church and state (ie. Speaker Mike Johnson's "spiritual advisor", Christian Nationalist David Barton) couldn't be more wrong. They want a theocracy. And for that, as a retired history teacher, I say to all Evangelical Trump supporters: "You get an 'F' on your civics and history homework!"
And they also want to end public education. Listening to npr on the drive home with its long history of attempts by the DAR to kill public education and impose religion on schools.
I’d welcome a discussion in the faith of the founders, what is probably more important is the faith or lack thereof of the Framers. The Founders were a perhaps more diverse bunch.
I don’t think comments about what religion may offer people as helpful as the argument it has no role in this government, and how to keep it out of it.
For me, what’s so interesting is that the Christian Nationalists think separation of church and state is killing religion, whereas it protects its freedom. People are leaving religions for two reasons: the vagaries of many of its institutional aspects (that’s an understatement!), and the rise of scientific empiricism since, well, since the sixteenth century. The first could be reformed; the second is unstoppable. Separation of church and state bears no responsibility. I know how strong and healthy a good church can be. I go to one.
I think your explanation of religion's role in dissing education is correct, but incomplete. Education in this country has been on the decline for decades (4 decades, to be exact). An uneducated person often feels "talked down to" - and sometimes is - because they do not have the knowledge to understand terms and concepts a more educated person is comfortable with using. For example, knowing the difference between mean, median, and mode regarding income. Add that to the books, magazines, movies, etc. that show a good-heaarted, uneducated man outsmarting a self-centered, educated man, and you have created a m
Valere, my own dissertation (which I share freely with a PDF link) is titled "Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies." The first book I read on gifted children, in the mid-80s, was by Barbara Clark. "Growing Up Gifted." I cried throughout the book as it was the first time I fully recognized my own giftedness. I attended my first away-from home conference when I was a parent searching for solutions and early into my PhD. It was a small group and she was the featured speaker. A no-nonsense kind of thinker, writer, and speaker while being kind and open. Obviously I liked her! I've heard and spoken with Howard Gardner. More than once. Yes, they are - and will continue to be - pioneers in the field.
I have Barbara‘s books and Howards of course. ‘Growing up Gifted’ is marvelous. I adapted her techniques for grad students in policy seminars:) What distinguished Barbara for me - from the day I met her - was her ‘kindness’ to everyone. She constantly gave of herself - I don’t ever recall her saying ‘no’ to an extra paper, or writing request. She belonged to a group of gifted and talented folks in academe, who had wanted to know, for a long time, if gifted children had a common denominator. They met yearly in conferences, and this was always a major topic for them. After some time - and I’m thinking it was around 10 years from when I first heard about the project - the group had come up with an agreed upon common denominator. (I don’t know that they published or wrote a paper - at the time it seemed to just be a general consensus that they had arrived at - and it certainly makes sense to me ). I think Renzulli was part of their group. But no matter the area of giftedness, or the intelligence, whether it would be one of Gardner’s multiple intelligences, Barbara and her colleagues agreed that all gifted kids have ‘the kindness trait.’ They are measurably gifted in other areas and intelligences, but all are enormously and unusually kind - even when others are not kind to them and are bullying them. This would likely fit with Gardner’s interpersonal and interpersonal intelligences. I’d be interested to know your thoughts on that topic :-)
You’ve given me some food for thought, Valere. Like how to talk about it. In general, I can certainly agree. What I’ve done in my observations and longitudinal studies is try to figure out what is behind unkind behavior (angry, bitter, extremely competitive or abusive behavior in some smart people. It appears they’ve been so harmed and diminished or humiliated somewhere along the way that their kindness can be intermittent, even manipulative. Although I haven’t called it kindness specifically, I’ve approached it as a “why do equally intelligent people turn out so differently as adults?” Write to me by my name at gmail.
Until the last 8 years or so, I wasn't steeped much in history although I have always loved biographies. I, too, am getting too old to start down another path of research, but I have analyzed many people from history with my own longitudinal study lens. With family and friends, I have to reign in that tendency to "read" them and figure them out ;-). Being "seen" is important to people. Being seen too much is well, too much.
Exactly. Agree 100%. And on a day, when I promised myself, I was not writing on this , I feel I wrote too much. But mostly and clarification of several posts.
I love it as well. He has done some interesting work with indigenous children. Basically finding in one population that as young children, they had the skill to read, but not the will to read because their culture emphasized working and learning in groups, but their school career entailed, having to work in isolation in a more competitive environment.
Gardner's finding re: indigenous children and learning in groups may have been part of the change in elementary education to have students work (and have desks arranged) in groups.
Good reply, but it seems to leave out the acceptance of slavery. The Constitution was not written for Black people. Fortunately, the Founders (or at least some of them) recognized the need to allow for Amendments.
I just finished reading Meacham’s exhaustive biography of Jefferson a few months ago. One of the key takeaways for me was that he worried about the re-institution of a monarchy throughout his life, and was especially fearful of the influence of religion - any religion - on government.
And he believed firmly that an educated populace, that everyday people living their everyday lives, were perfectly capable of making smart, reasonable, informed decisions about what was best, and yes - governing themselves.
The extreme right “re-branding” of key players and thought from our nation’s founding is an incredible distortion of what they all fought so hard for, for so long. It’s painful to hear.
Thank you Wendy. I think what is so stunning about our constitution was that while it was written by “men of their time“ it left room for the inclusion that we have so desperately needed. Indeed, I am sure you can see Jefferson’s hand in it so far as his fight for the inclusion of all citizens. It has been extremely painful for me to watch Donald Trump, during his presidency, declare that “there were very fine people on both sides“ of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017, at which one person died and 19 others were injured. He not just endorses but has suggested using violence against anti-racist demonstrators. And it is painful as well to recognize that he has garnered followers who have the same exclusionary mindset as he. Two years after the Charlottesville violence, in interviews in 2019, Trump was still defending those comments, describing them as “perfect words that I used.“ And he has continued his hate rhetoric after leaving office, gathering those same kind of neo-Nazi individuals along with Christian nationalists in a cult-like following (he has declared to them that “I am the chosen one”) in an attempt to regain office. I am very impressed with the number of people who are confronting Trump’s hate rhetoric and confronting the revisionist history of the Christian nationalists influencing the Supreme Court. At the same time, I’m very hopeful because of the way lower courts and individuals who have shown incredible strength, such as Georgia’s secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger, who have denied Trump’s challenges. It’s Trump’s right to make challenges but I’m very pleased that courts have not bent to his will and his false rhetoric. I think we’re going to see protests in the streets to take back our rights that have been lost. That’s not a bad thing. I’m a hippie dippy, vegan, animal rights, activist, who didn’t even believe in jail except for the most violent crimes until very recently (perhaps in the last year). I would rather have peaceful dialogue through conflict resolution.. But we have to preserve our democracy. I do my activism, speaking truth to power through my computer keyboard. There is a need for a dissertation on the founding fathers. That’s never been done. But I do find it profound that the constitution was written with the intent for inclusion, and it specifically excluded having religion as part of our governance. The writers were not Christian. That dissertation needs to be definitively done with academic rigor - and then published. One of my colleagues suggested I write the work; however, one PhD was plenty enough for me. But I’m beating the drum for someone to do it, and perhaps Jon Meacham can add this to his repertoire. He is already qualified! Brava to you for reading him – – his Jefferson is on my stack. And in the meantime, I’m challenging and confronting this false narrative from the Heritage Foundation etc. I intend to be in Washington DC in August, 2024 for the women’s March. Hope to see you there💙
Let’s put it on our radar! And connect if either of us makes a firm plan:) i’ve been to marches in DC as well, but it was back in the day. I think this one will be the most important so if I can make it I’ll be there with my Dachshund in tow. 💙
Huzzah! Whatever its failings, and the failings of its drafters, the Constitution left room to grow. Monarchies and dictatorships never do that -- at least not until they're forced to, often at gunpoint.
If you wonder how religion could run amok as it has in the US, Kurt Andersen, in Fantasyland How America got Heywire, gives a clue. Let's hope this is the last stage of such abuse of our need for belief and myth.
I think that religion has become more virulent as it declines. Sort of a last gasp of vicious, cruel belligerence. Statistics show that people who consider themselves agnostics or atheists are more numerous now than ever before, at least in the U.S.
Actually, the religions of founders were mostly mixed: Deists, Christians, and Agnostics. What they held in common was a strong and foundational belief in Lockean Liberalism. It was the apex of the Enlightenment, a time in Western Europe, most especially England, France, and the colonies, when arguments about religion and governance were fair play.
You are correct. And their membership in Unitarianism followed England’s of Christianity without the trinity. Thank you so much for your comment because I need to clarify my post
Valere, thank you for this beautifully articulated clarification of the "real big picture" of the founders and their ideology and intents. It truly is lost on far too many. All these "originalists" (SCOTUS, MAGA-type GOP, etal.) are just "fascists of a different flavor", willfully doing all possible to force their own arch-conservative "pseudo-christian-centric" spin of what they personally believe on the rest of us.
Separation of Church & State is absolutely a critical underpinning of a true democratic republic - and it's anathema to old-school Plutocrats, Evangelicals. A continued stream of Blue Waves has to get them out- voted and voted out. 🌊🌊🌊. Then reinstate and codify the Fairness Doctrine, repeal Citizens United and reinstate a stronger Roe v Wade.
Thank you Marc. You’ve said it all with such a beautiful description! I’ve said so many times that it will be after we elect Joe again (with both gaining House and Senate) our real work is going to commence. Thank you so much, because we have to stay together, and let our keyboard do our speaking truth to power:)
I recall a book about the founding fathers and that they were indeed members of either the UU church or not a member of any denomination. My MIL was sharing it with the family and I didn’t get a chance to read it but it was enlightening and worth a re read if I can find it. Don’t recall this book? It was published about a decade ago.
Thank you susanne. Actually, the Unitarianism followed by the Early founders followed the Christian Unitarianism of England without the Trinity. But then, in later years in the 20th century Unitarianism in the United States, became the UA, mostly social justice. I’m not a religious scholar but I do need to correct my post. I think my point I wanted to make was they were not the nationalist Christians of the Heritage Society, who are attempting to influence Congress and SCOTUS, as well as the broader citizenry to try to convince them that the founders practiced a religion such as they do today as religious right Christian nationalists, who is the support Trump as the ‘chosen one,’ (as Trump calls himself).
They were also hypocrits who excluded anyone who was not white or male or did not believe in their form of "god" while also owning humans and raping them and then raping their own daughters.
Valere, your insight and knowledge of these things blows me away. Now that winter's literally around the corner, instead of working out in the yard (my favorite kind of therapy), I'll definitely be spending more time at the library. A lot of what you've written here is new to me, so now I want to learn more. Thanks once again for sharing your knowledge!
I do hope you can find an alternate therapy and if I may, I’d like to recommend Bob Cooley‘s resistance stretching. It’s a wonderful thing to do and takes the layers of stretch away in a way that you just couldn’t imagine happening. Based on yoga actually but he’s developed it into a unique program. It builds flexibility and strength. Bob Cooley has a website but I’m thinking the easiest way in case you’d like to access. It is to Google 16Geniuses.com
His Saturday morning zoom classes have been free, but if there is a charge, it is not much: perhaps $20 for an hour and a half on the zoom. Anyway, I thought in case if you’re not working in the yard and you want some fabulous truly beneficial exercise this might be an option. Also he does have YouTube that you can access let me know if you need more information because I have, a couple of telephone numbers I can share
I watched a terrific movie this afternoon. That’s on YouTube. It is absolutely incredible and is called “Unfit” filmed in 2020. George Conway is in it and mental health professionals; individuals who used to work closely with Trump; a security expert over the nuclear program. My senses that even Republicans watching this would be concerned about having him in office again. I highly recommend it.
Let me know if you watch it. Also, let me know if you need any information on Bob Cooley’s program. I don’t often recommend people in this way. But I’ve done stretching, swimming, yoga, lots of bodywork over many decades. Bob Cooley is an expert.
Thanks! Sounds like he has a good following. I'll need to check with my neurosurgeon to see if it's okay. Waiting (but not looking forward) to see him next month to schedule spine surgery. In a weird way, the timing sort of works out since it's not "growing season" here. Still want to read up on the history that we weren't taught in school decades ago. Am also going to check out that link.
PS #2: Diane, the research that you plan on doing this winter, which will educate you to what is truly happening in Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States and the executive branch, as well as what Trump is trying to do to our country by setting himself up as a dictator is exactly what Thomas Jefferson wanted every citizen to do. he wanted future citizen to be educated to be able to challenge in front. Confront elected leaders. Bravo to you. Research means that everyone contributes. It’s like having a brick wall and everyone brings their brick to it and then it’s built. And that’s what’s happening on this website every every single person is bringing, their piece of information and knowledge to make us stronger together. The more knowledge and information you have, the better able you will be to understand what Joyce is presenting to us. We help her when we become more knowledgeable. She is doing the heavy lifting for us but when we can absorb what she is saying and then carry that message to our community and family to help get the blue votes we need in 2024, it will help her message gain momentum and have wider coverage. She is confronting some major lies and untruths. So the more foundational we all can become, the more educated, the quicker we will be able to help with others, even though who have planned to vote Republican, to understand the true message that our democracy is very very much at risk right now.
Nice, Valere. One slight correction. The UU Church was founded in 1961, so our Founders were not members. But many were Deists, as has been mentioned elsewhere, and there's an intellectual, spiritual confluence there with Unitarianism, I think.
Hi Peter, i’m not a religious scholar at all but the first formal body of the Unitarian church was formed in England in 1773. The members in America followed that formation. But for centuries before they were anti-Trinitarian, and there’s quite a history documented on the movement. Jeffersons, private papers from Monticello mentioned that his colleagues were Unitarian - while he had not joined them, he thought Unitarianism would be the religion of the United States. He had his own way of understanding Christianity, and he wrote extensively about that even constructing a kind of book of his own So that’s where I gained the thought that. The 1961 formation of UA did not necessarily incorporate all of the Unitarian philosophy. My senior professor’s mother was a lifelong member of the Unitarian church in Washington DC long before the 1961 creation of the UUA. We used to call the meetings or gatherings her ‘business meetings.’ Every Unitarian church member I have known has been a phenomenal social justice advocate, and I assume the lineage went back to those in England in the 1700s. Again I’m not a religious scholar at all and was repeating Jefferson’s writing without quoting. I’ve written elsewhere on this substract that I think someone should do an in-depth study or dissertation on the founders, including their religion. They absolutely wanted to separate religion out of our governing documents. Thanks for the clarification. I will make that clarifying note in my original post. 💙
Thanks so much, Valere, for the good reminder “not to just Google stuff.” I actually know better when I recall (I’m pretty sure about this) that a number of the Concord Transcendentalists were Unitarians, such as, perhaps, Emerson and the Alcotts, among others.
Hi Peter, I just know a tiny bit about any of the religions. As a young woman, I was offered a scholarship to Union Theological Seminary (master’s degree through PhD). I was invited to apply. I had applied to Harvard and Columbia and declined by both. Union said ‘ please apply, we have a place for you.’ I was recommended by someone who had been involved in civil rights, and who had become quite well-known in conflict, resolution, nominated for Nobel, etc.
So when I applied, I listed Hindu, Buddhist, Christian as my religion. I was raised by agnostic parents, so I really didn’t have much more to go on except my own exploration. So I had no ‘religion’ to write down in the application. Union suggested I write down ‘Episcopalian’ because that was the church funding my potential scholarship. I couldn’t say I would be an ‘Episcopalian’ because I couldn’t erase influences that were central to me. (As was atheism for that matter). I know some folks at Union were
surprised when I declined their offer and took another route to my formal education career. My sense is that with 8 billion people on the planet, there are many paths to a spiritual connection to God. And I respect those who join churches, and have religions in so doing. While I am not anti-religion, as many folks are, I’m also not a member of a religion. And I am very much opposed to religion being in the governance of our country. What other countries do is their own business. But I very much resent Christian nationalist trying to impose their brand of Christianity as a revisionist history of our constitution. I wish I were either a constitutional attorney or a scholar of religion, so could write more in-depth on this subject. I also wish someone would do a dissertation on the founders and publish it as a definitive source of the founders’ personal religions and choices, and how that framed the writing of the constitution. I think that would be a valuable study. I’m not history; I’m education policy with anthropology, political science, sociology, and history. This project on the backgrounds of founders needs a historian working on it:))
And the Framers would have been aghast at the MAGA claim that God anointed Trump (or would anoint anyone) to make America great again. In a letter to Roger C. Weightman just days before he died, Thomas Jefferson referred to the notion of God-ordained rulers (Divine Right) as made possible only by the "monkish ignorance and superstition" of the people, something that general enlightenment and education would hopefully cure.
The two things that the Framers may have feared the most were Executive power run amok, and the powers of government being unduly influenced by religion...any religion. They did not found a monarchy or a theocracy.
I must add that Jefferson was not at the Philadelphia Convention (he was in France at the time), and is therefore, technically speaking, not one the Framers. But he did make his thoughts on government known in his correspondence with James Madison. So there's that.
From what I’ve read it seems like he was pretty successful at keeping his fingers on the pulse of what was happening back home, and of making his own wishes known - often in subtle ways that were not always so visible to the public eye. :)
The men who founded the country didn't resemble these vote suppressing geeks. If they did, we'd have a country built for rich landowning men. But these men were different. They were oligarchs who made a country for the common man. I think I can say that if you look at the Tory government that's been in power for-- is it 13 years?-- there's nothing for any non-rich person now. They've got one answer to every financial question and that is austerity! Don't spend even 5 pence on anyone-- don't do it! So what if you have to wait ten years for your surgery or whatev? Remember the AIDS epidemic? There was a tainted blood scandal there at the beginning of AIDS. I guess that was forty years ago? Victims got their compensation last week.
Thoughts now of my grandmother. Born in 1882, she never learned to drive, never had much, always had enough. Every election she walked to the polling place, worked all day and walked home late. She did that almost to the day she died at the age of 87. I could tell it was really important to her.
My grandmother who spoke only Yiddish, and knew very few English words, would put on her finest dress (which really was very modest) and sit up straight with me as an eight year old and my mother and father to listen attentively and respectfully to OUR President FDR on our only radio even though she could understand virtually nothing! Made me very proud of my little family!
Thank you Valere; your comment makes me tear up because their immigrant experience in the “New World” was so prevalent regardless of religion or nationality. We all came together in WW11 without complaint, without criticism, and with a common experience of togetherness! Haven’t heard it that way since on a large scale, have you? Nor have we heard anything in this country since those days like the poison and hatred of tfg— everything is on the line, isn’t it? We must respond 100%— please go to www.TurnUp.US and help these brilliant and effective Harvard students help us win this battle for OUR democracy? Many thanks all of you!
I will go to Turnup.US and help in any way I am able - and will also share your recommendation. And your original post made me tear up as well, because I could feel the gratitude your grandmother had for her country and democracy. I think those of us who have seen or experienced countries without democracy, know the difference and feel a bit like kissing the tarmac every time we come home. Your grandmother knew the difference. It’s on the same topic (just not the one we’re facing at the moment). Have you by chance seen the movie ‘My Country, My Country’? It is so poignant, and makes one think about how easy it has been for us to vote. I saw the movie several years ago (then ordered my own copy because I wanted to show it to as many people as I could), and I am reminded of it again tonight as we are faced with losing our democracy.
Thank for that recommendation as I have never heard of it! I will follow up and being the softie I am about things like that, I’m sure it will bring back memories of our very multicultural population on the Lower East Side of NY, some of it not at all friendly or peaceful, but ultimately that past and it is very different there now.
Ira, ‘my country, my country’ was a documentary when Iraq was first allowed to have elections. But it’s so poignant because it speaks to how we take our voting rights for granted.
I will be a poll worker next year after a hiatus of 10 years. I bet your post gave many a primer in election law. It is distressing how many do not know how elections run or how government works.
Our family matriarch at 94, my mom, makes it clear who she supports and no one in our family disagrees out loud. In fact most agree with her. She is our example of getting involved. Doing voter registration drives for both Jack and Bobby Kennedy.
Can I just say that Cruz is a douche?? And, would it be too much for me to get a little bit of credit for NOT using a four-letter sentence enhancer before the "douche" part?? Asking for a friend...
Why, thanks, Valere! I agree, there's just nuthin' there (kinda like TFG, actually, they're both empty vessels). Come to think of it, Cruz doesn't have a sense of humor, either. Well, it's looking like they've got more in common that I originally thought, and THAT's not a good thing!!
You are very welcome. You may say neither have a core. Or a shred of moral fiber. Cruz first used Cambridge Analytica (this was Steve Bannon‘s baby, developed from his knowledge as a former, black ops military officer) to obtain unauthorized data from 50 million Facebook accounts. Then when Cruz dropped out of the 2016 campaign, Cambridge analytica worked with Trump, giving Trump some 75 million unauthorized Facebook accounts for his 2016 presidential campaign.A CA employee turned whistleblower, testified to Congress that Steve Bannon ordered software that hooked CA To Facebook. The CA engineers were Russian, with ties to the Russian CIA equivalent. The CA CEO also testified that 100% of the Trump campaign’s data came from Cambridge Analytica. Then, Steve Bannon became Donald Trump‘s chief advisor in the White House. Facebook was fined $725 million for their part in this scheme. In an effort to put lipstick on the pig, FB who denied wrongdoing, changed their name to Meta. Bannon is doing his black ops warfare psychology for Trump six days a week on his War Room podcast. And his message continues to be that Trump won in 2020. And he directs his message to Republicans,. He was charged by the DOJ for fraud in a fundraising scheme for the border fence. Donald Trump pardoned him on his last day in office. He has spent all of his time from 2019 doing his psychological warfare promoting the idea that Trump won the election. He has trial May 2024 in New York State for the same fraud that DOJ charged him and for which Trump pardoned him. New York State has charged him because donation money came from New York. So be my guest: you may add Steve Bannon to the crew who have no moral fiber or ethics.
Indeed, but remember them sparring in the primary?... TFG's standard response and preface to an attack was "Lyin' Ted..." and then there was the time he trotted out a pic of Melania and "a less than flattering" one of Teds' wife... and then Ted "went Nuclear" to defend his wife - but it was toothless and in word only... and of course "he kissed TFG's ring" once TFG got elected. Such a pandering hypocrite.
Returned to being a poll worker this November after not doing it during COVID. In Maine there are 2 people at the registration check-in desk - one R and one D. The same is true in several other instances on voting day. There are contingencies and protocols for every imaginable problem that can come up; for every step of verifying machine numbers against numbers of ballots given out, etc. . VOTE. and give yourself time to make sure you're still on the rolls and at the right place (Maine makes it easy with same day registration - even on-site).
I so love Bella. The big girl who’s a peacemaker. Lots of people look at a German Shepherd and they are instantly afraid. But just like in life first impressions can be so wrong. For example, for the homeless folks near my home are so polite. They are gracious, thank me for my little kindnesses, call me ma’am, etc. If only we could see each other as brothers and sisters. Hello, Republicans….are you listening?!!
My first trip to vote is one I'll never forget. I voted for Adlai Stevenson . My husband and I had been married just two months and were renting an apartment. The landlady discovered I was a Democrat and my husband was Republican,, as she was. Thereafter I got the "cold shoulder." Television was pretty new where we lived and late on election-day afternoon she called and invited my husband to "Come upstairs and watch Eisenhower win". It was clear I was not invited.
My Mom worked every election as a voting clerk and I have always thanked the poll workers. To me, the vote is the bedrock of democracy, and my fear is that if Donald Trump is re-elected we may not have any more voting. along with all the people he is going to punish and government departments he's promising to gut. MAGAs need to wake up and realize what their world will be like if they keep on attending his rallies and voting for him.
Today I looked over at my 4 goats as they were feeding on their hay. What I saw was a 5th head buried in the hay that belonged to my Livestock Guard Dog named Harry. Harry was enjoying a little snack along with his goats. And so, Bella enjoys a little snack with her chickens. It all makes perfect sense.
My Husky Wolf cross eats the horses' feed the horses drop while they are eating it. Lots would say never to allow this or that it was not possible they would get along. But it is possible and bec they are willing. I wish some humans had more integrity and willingness.
I hope she doesn’t get tummy upset from chicken feed. But on a serious note, I’m not sure if it was you or one of your sisters in law that said if Rudy wants to appeal he has to give 148 million to the court to hold while he appeals. If he loses they get their money. But I also heard that a lien has been placed on his NY apartment. Please advise which is true.
It is likely that he is delusional because he sounds totally convinced:”stay tuned”he said confidently the night before the verdict! Of course he has no evidence and never has had any. The days for producing ANY evidence is three years past and after 60+ federal and state courts and even many Trump appointed judges threw the cases out the door! TFG is a bit harder to figure out because he is a born con job and bully but it would not be surprising that he also has convinced even himself that all of the truths are lies? What do you think?
I think Trump is a manipulative sociopath. He knows exactly what he is doing. And he knows full well that he lost the election.
I’m not a psychologist, but basing my assessment on documented reports of his rhetoric that has supported and even led to hate crimes. He fabricates truth to advantage himself. He distorts facts from crowd size at his inauguration to discussions with heads of state. And he wants people to feel sorry for him. There is nothing delusional about what he is doing: it’s an orchestrated plan to keep his cultist Christian nationalist followers in tow. (they are the delusional by the way. He (Trump) knowing full well what he is doing and saying has convinced them that he is the Messiah. Remember also, when Bernie Madoff was interviewed in prison and the reporter asked him why he did what he did, he said, “I wanted people to feel sorry for me.” Madoff did not ever apologize for his crimes. I see some of that behavior in Trump. He likes portraying himself as a victim.
I can’t dispute that analysis and we probably will never know the answer but it really doesn’t matter, does it, because in a way he is unifying an overwhelming national majority against him and his dangerous maga minority? There has to be a time of reckoning both politically and legally or else it will destroy us! It may also result in violence, some destruction and hatred which will pit neighbor vs neighbor (in a larger sense)! But we are fortunate that Joe is in charge and he will use careful judgment in restraining the worst elements. Both great victories and very dim occasions are ahead of us but it must be resolved on many levels of government and ordinary society.
Wow! You have absolutely nailed it on every point. Americans indeed are coming together to oppose him. I cannot agree with you more about Joe. He was born for the job and I am so happy he is at the helm today and will be in 2024. I think also that we may have some marching in the streets as we did in the 60s. I think that will be a good thing because I think ultimately it will get rid of some of the crumb bums in Congress and let the Supreme Court know what we think about losing our rights.
Absolutely; I hope you bring your enthusiasm to help organize a HUGE Women March on DC in August in preparation for the biggest vote push in our history!!
Valere, I hope you are right. I’m looking for some glimmers that Americans will do the right thing. Joe has given some amazing speeches; lately, not so much. He needs to pull the country together. I am imagining the good people of America are silent right now and will appear in droves to vote out Republicans. How many times does Liz Cheney have to ask people NOT to vote Republican for Republicans to wake up?
I think if you look around, people are not silent even this early. So much happening! Producers creating all sorts of video. (See Eleven Films). Postcard & letter writing groups organizing. Digital warriors organizing. DNC state chairs organizing Democratic challengers for every office. SOOOOOO MUCH going on right now...there are too many to name. We're organizing and gearing up for the work in 2024.
No, I have not watched this - but I will get back to you after I do. I’m excited to take a look. Perhaps I should have watched it before responding to Ira, but did not know of it. There is just so much documentation on his head feels rhetoric and twisting of facts that I wrote knowing about that the the amount of documented public information could back up my assessment of sociopath. Thank you for sharing this link!
I’m at the beginning, only at the part where he says “”I am the chosen one.” Mika on Morning Joe has said: “I can say he’s crazy.” I have a strong cup of coffee and I’m fastening my seatbelt.
Hi Beth, I’m watching the link Pam sent. I’m at the beginning with a strong cup of coffee, and I’m fastening my seatbelt: he has said “I am the chosen one.” I have a feeling this is going to be the best hour and 24 minutes of downtime given myself in months.
I was at a Holiday party last weekend and found myself at the dinner table with Republicans. I stayed calm and asked questions. Bottom line is they are voting based on the price of hamburger. I don’t even eat mammals, vote on saving our rights (starting with the right for everyone to vote and for it to count) and trying to find a way to give people opportunities, even the least among us. I was surprised that they know nothing about what Trump is saying he plans to do. They think they’re supporting the constitution and the libs aren’t.
The constitution was written by wealthy white heterosexual christian men. Then the rest of showed up. And didn't SHUT up. (And won't. Not ever).
No wonder they're mad.
Sorry Yeshe: the constitution was written by white, heterosexual, atheist, deist, men, who if they belong to a church at all, joined the Unitarian church, which runs itself more or less like a social justice rights meeting for all… And they wrote a social contract for all citizens: those who couldn’t write or read or attend the meetings. But if you will read Thomas Jefferson’s and other founding fathers’ letters, they wanted ‘We The People,' for whom the constitution was written to be a social contract. They wanted citizens to be literate and educated, and to be able to challenge and confront their elected lawmakers. You can read it all in the Monticello documents, or other libraries in the original forms. Jefferson founded the University of Virginia as a public university to promote literacy for citizens. The ‘rest’ need to get educated, and one can do that without going into a formal institution at all. Then they can do as Jefferson, one of the founding fathers, but representative of all the writers posed: “Challenge and confront.”
They wrote this social contract because they did not want a king. It’s up to each individual, nobody’s going to pour information down anybody’s throat.
The Republicans are now complaining about ‘Biden’s elite educated civil service team’ as if something’s wrong with having an education. These nationalist Republicans remind me of the group that the founding fathers wanted all of the new countries citizens to become. I’m hoping your verbiage about the rest, showing up, means that they are challenging and confronting their elected officials. Your assumption that the founders were Christian shows that the nationalist Christian right wing conservative ‘think tanks’ and others are getting their false message out. They want the American public to believe the founders were Christian, just like them. They were not, and we need to point this out and correct it whenever we see it because they’re trying to form laws based on a Nationalist Christian ideology. Nothing could be further from the truth and nothing points more to revisionist history than this kind of false information: the founders were absolutely unequivocal about separating religion from government. They fought the revolution against the king of England, who was the head of the church of England. When one follows that logic, this is the first place where today’s citizens need to challenge and confront. Religion has no place in the constitution. It never did have a place and it never should.
Yes, I love that you pointed this out once again. Thank you, Valere!
Hi Deborah, Someone (history) needs to do a dissertation that looks at the backgrounds of the founders. I’m too exhausted at the moment to do another PhD, but I would love someone else to do it. That kind of in depth look would add a valuable piece to the research. Did you happen to know Barbara Clark in your work with giftedness? Or Howard Gardner? (Howard isn’t ‘gifted’ per se, but instead points to the varied intelligences in all of us). My master’s degree was a project for him. Barbara Clark was a
friend of mine:) Both pioneers, and valuable to the field.
The railing against the “educated” goes hand in hand with the glorification of the myth that the founders were Christian, which being children of the Enlightenment they most certainly were not.
Religion thrives preying on the ignorant, and its value shrinks as education spreads . Religion was after all in part a way to explain the mysterious. Why does the sun go away and come back? Why do bad things happen to good people? Science has been demystifying the world of religion as knowledge progresses, and for centuries the purpose of religion has been declining. Now it is only a tool for power and control. The educated people are a threat to the authoritarianism of religion, and our current situation is born of a dying creature refusing to go.
I really see no role for religion that cannot be performed by people with no adherence to it. It is harmful.
As for religion now being “a tool for power and control.”
It’s nothing new, it’s been used this way for millennia.
I even suspect that that is its true purpose. I know that Islam greatly changed Arabian society, mostly for the better, until the power was established and harnessed. Most people, for example, don't know that burying newborn female babies alive was normal before Islam, as was abandoning widows in the desert to die. The first scholars in Islam were also women, but within 300 years all evidence of it was obliterated and misogyny took over. Religion is an expression of tribalism, on steroids.
Valere, thank you for the wonderful comment. It's a keeper.
I've often thought that religion is just another political system. I think it started as Jen says, a way to explain the natural world, but people who wanted power and control saw an opening to harness the fear and raise themselves to a status to be worshiped.
Absolute truth. Think of Galileo, who threatened the mysticism and therefore the power.
Now it has nothing to offer at all, except the club. Both ain’t it’s social meaning and coercion.
I've always seen religion as an alternative to alcohol--something people turn to for comfort and oblivion. "Alternative facts", if you will.
That’s interesting.
I think it’s complicated. Many people brainwashed as children and never told this particular Santa isn’t real. For many, a community where it’s harder and harder to find one. A club that is in almost every city, open to strangers when few places are (except bars, as you say).
But in its organization, a tool for control.
And at its foundation, a profound and harmful lie.
A little too much painting-with-a-wide-brush here on the Founders "not being Christian." Many certainly were. The thing to point out today is that so-called experts on the Founders' faith who say they all were Christian and had no interest in separating church and state (ie. Speaker Mike Johnson's "spiritual advisor", Christian Nationalist David Barton) couldn't be more wrong. They want a theocracy. And for that, as a retired history teacher, I say to all Evangelical Trump supporters: "You get an 'F' on your civics and history homework!"
And they also want to end public education. Listening to npr on the drive home with its long history of attempts by the DAR to kill public education and impose religion on schools.
I’d welcome a discussion in the faith of the founders, what is probably more important is the faith or lack thereof of the Framers. The Founders were a perhaps more diverse bunch.
I don’t think comments about what religion may offer people as helpful as the argument it has no role in this government, and how to keep it out of it.
For me, what’s so interesting is that the Christian Nationalists think separation of church and state is killing religion, whereas it protects its freedom. People are leaving religions for two reasons: the vagaries of many of its institutional aspects (that’s an understatement!), and the rise of scientific empiricism since, well, since the sixteenth century. The first could be reformed; the second is unstoppable. Separation of church and state bears no responsibility. I know how strong and healthy a good church can be. I go to one.
I think your explanation of religion's role in dissing education is correct, but incomplete. Education in this country has been on the decline for decades (4 decades, to be exact). An uneducated person often feels "talked down to" - and sometimes is - because they do not have the knowledge to understand terms and concepts a more educated person is comfortable with using. For example, knowing the difference between mean, median, and mode regarding income. Add that to the books, magazines, movies, etc. that show a good-heaarted, uneducated man outsmarting a self-centered, educated man, and you have created a m
indset that discounts education.
Valere, my own dissertation (which I share freely with a PDF link) is titled "Environmental, Familial, and Personal Factors That Affect the Self-Actualization of Highly Gifted Adults: Case Studies." The first book I read on gifted children, in the mid-80s, was by Barbara Clark. "Growing Up Gifted." I cried throughout the book as it was the first time I fully recognized my own giftedness. I attended my first away-from home conference when I was a parent searching for solutions and early into my PhD. It was a small group and she was the featured speaker. A no-nonsense kind of thinker, writer, and speaker while being kind and open. Obviously I liked her! I've heard and spoken with Howard Gardner. More than once. Yes, they are - and will continue to be - pioneers in the field.
I have Barbara‘s books and Howards of course. ‘Growing up Gifted’ is marvelous. I adapted her techniques for grad students in policy seminars:) What distinguished Barbara for me - from the day I met her - was her ‘kindness’ to everyone. She constantly gave of herself - I don’t ever recall her saying ‘no’ to an extra paper, or writing request. She belonged to a group of gifted and talented folks in academe, who had wanted to know, for a long time, if gifted children had a common denominator. They met yearly in conferences, and this was always a major topic for them. After some time - and I’m thinking it was around 10 years from when I first heard about the project - the group had come up with an agreed upon common denominator. (I don’t know that they published or wrote a paper - at the time it seemed to just be a general consensus that they had arrived at - and it certainly makes sense to me ). I think Renzulli was part of their group. But no matter the area of giftedness, or the intelligence, whether it would be one of Gardner’s multiple intelligences, Barbara and her colleagues agreed that all gifted kids have ‘the kindness trait.’ They are measurably gifted in other areas and intelligences, but all are enormously and unusually kind - even when others are not kind to them and are bullying them. This would likely fit with Gardner’s interpersonal and interpersonal intelligences. I’d be interested to know your thoughts on that topic :-)
You’ve given me some food for thought, Valere. Like how to talk about it. In general, I can certainly agree. What I’ve done in my observations and longitudinal studies is try to figure out what is behind unkind behavior (angry, bitter, extremely competitive or abusive behavior in some smart people. It appears they’ve been so harmed and diminished or humiliated somewhere along the way that their kindness can be intermittent, even manipulative. Although I haven’t called it kindness specifically, I’ve approached it as a “why do equally intelligent people turn out so differently as adults?” Write to me by my name at gmail.
Until the last 8 years or so, I wasn't steeped much in history although I have always loved biographies. I, too, am getting too old to start down another path of research, but I have analyzed many people from history with my own longitudinal study lens. With family and friends, I have to reign in that tendency to "read" them and figure them out ;-). Being "seen" is important to people. Being seen too much is well, too much.
Exactly. Agree 100%. And on a day, when I promised myself, I was not writing on this , I feel I wrote too much. But mostly and clarification of several posts.
Love Gardner's work:
Howard Gardner https://g.co/kgs/WwDgvQ
Mary pat,
I love it as well. He has done some interesting work with indigenous children. Basically finding in one population that as young children, they had the skill to read, but not the will to read because their culture emphasized working and learning in groups, but their school career entailed, having to work in isolation in a more competitive environment.
Gardner's finding re: indigenous children and learning in groups may have been part of the change in elementary education to have students work (and have desks arranged) in groups.
Good reply, but it seems to leave out the acceptance of slavery. The Constitution was not written for Black people. Fortunately, the Founders (or at least some of them) recognized the need to allow for Amendments.
This is excellent - and dead on accurate.
I just finished reading Meacham’s exhaustive biography of Jefferson a few months ago. One of the key takeaways for me was that he worried about the re-institution of a monarchy throughout his life, and was especially fearful of the influence of religion - any religion - on government.
And he believed firmly that an educated populace, that everyday people living their everyday lives, were perfectly capable of making smart, reasonable, informed decisions about what was best, and yes - governing themselves.
The extreme right “re-branding” of key players and thought from our nation’s founding is an incredible distortion of what they all fought so hard for, for so long. It’s painful to hear.
Thank you Wendy. I think what is so stunning about our constitution was that while it was written by “men of their time“ it left room for the inclusion that we have so desperately needed. Indeed, I am sure you can see Jefferson’s hand in it so far as his fight for the inclusion of all citizens. It has been extremely painful for me to watch Donald Trump, during his presidency, declare that “there were very fine people on both sides“ of a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia on August 12, 2017, at which one person died and 19 others were injured. He not just endorses but has suggested using violence against anti-racist demonstrators. And it is painful as well to recognize that he has garnered followers who have the same exclusionary mindset as he. Two years after the Charlottesville violence, in interviews in 2019, Trump was still defending those comments, describing them as “perfect words that I used.“ And he has continued his hate rhetoric after leaving office, gathering those same kind of neo-Nazi individuals along with Christian nationalists in a cult-like following (he has declared to them that “I am the chosen one”) in an attempt to regain office. I am very impressed with the number of people who are confronting Trump’s hate rhetoric and confronting the revisionist history of the Christian nationalists influencing the Supreme Court. At the same time, I’m very hopeful because of the way lower courts and individuals who have shown incredible strength, such as Georgia’s secretary of State, Brad Raffensberger, who have denied Trump’s challenges. It’s Trump’s right to make challenges but I’m very pleased that courts have not bent to his will and his false rhetoric. I think we’re going to see protests in the streets to take back our rights that have been lost. That’s not a bad thing. I’m a hippie dippy, vegan, animal rights, activist, who didn’t even believe in jail except for the most violent crimes until very recently (perhaps in the last year). I would rather have peaceful dialogue through conflict resolution.. But we have to preserve our democracy. I do my activism, speaking truth to power through my computer keyboard. There is a need for a dissertation on the founding fathers. That’s never been done. But I do find it profound that the constitution was written with the intent for inclusion, and it specifically excluded having religion as part of our governance. The writers were not Christian. That dissertation needs to be definitively done with academic rigor - and then published. One of my colleagues suggested I write the work; however, one PhD was plenty enough for me. But I’m beating the drum for someone to do it, and perhaps Jon Meacham can add this to his repertoire. He is already qualified! Brava to you for reading him – – his Jefferson is on my stack. And in the meantime, I’m challenging and confronting this false narrative from the Heritage Foundation etc. I intend to be in Washington DC in August, 2024 for the women’s March. Hope to see you there💙
You sound like a fierce scholar, an undaunted activist, and an absolute delight, Valere. Such a treat to connect with you here.
I’ve been to several Marches in DC and in my own area. Haven’t committed to Aug ‘24 yet - but it’s on my radar!
Let’s put it on our radar! And connect if either of us makes a firm plan:) i’ve been to marches in DC as well, but it was back in the day. I think this one will be the most important so if I can make it I’ll be there with my Dachshund in tow. 💙
Bravo Valere!!
Merry Christmas Fay! I hope you are well💙
Huzzah! Whatever its failings, and the failings of its drafters, the Constitution left room to grow. Monarchies and dictatorships never do that -- at least not until they're forced to, often at gunpoint.
Exactly Susanna. You have echoed my response. Period
Beautifully written. This is a great place to learn, not just from Joyce. Thank you!
Thank you Joanne. And a supportive place to reinforce that we need to challenge and confront:))
If you wonder how religion could run amok as it has in the US, Kurt Andersen, in Fantasyland How America got Heywire, gives a clue. Let's hope this is the last stage of such abuse of our need for belief and myth.
I think that religion has become more virulent as it declines. Sort of a last gasp of vicious, cruel belligerence. Statistics show that people who consider themselves agnostics or atheists are more numerous now than ever before, at least in the U.S.
Actually, the religions of founders were mostly mixed: Deists, Christians, and Agnostics. What they held in common was a strong and foundational belief in Lockean Liberalism. It was the apex of the Enlightenment, a time in Western Europe, most especially England, France, and the colonies, when arguments about religion and governance were fair play.
Joseph in Fairport NY
You are correct. And their membership in Unitarianism followed England’s of Christianity without the trinity. Thank you so much for your comment because I need to clarify my post
Valere, thank you for this beautifully articulated clarification of the "real big picture" of the founders and their ideology and intents. It truly is lost on far too many. All these "originalists" (SCOTUS, MAGA-type GOP, etal.) are just "fascists of a different flavor", willfully doing all possible to force their own arch-conservative "pseudo-christian-centric" spin of what they personally believe on the rest of us.
Separation of Church & State is absolutely a critical underpinning of a true democratic republic - and it's anathema to old-school Plutocrats, Evangelicals. A continued stream of Blue Waves has to get them out- voted and voted out. 🌊🌊🌊. Then reinstate and codify the Fairness Doctrine, repeal Citizens United and reinstate a stronger Roe v Wade.
Thank you Marc. You’ve said it all with such a beautiful description! I’ve said so many times that it will be after we elect Joe again (with both gaining House and Senate) our real work is going to commence. Thank you so much, because we have to stay together, and let our keyboard do our speaking truth to power:)
I recall a book about the founding fathers and that they were indeed members of either the UU church or not a member of any denomination. My MIL was sharing it with the family and I didn’t get a chance to read it but it was enlightening and worth a re read if I can find it. Don’t recall this book? It was published about a decade ago.
Thank you susanne. Actually, the Unitarianism followed by the Early founders followed the Christian Unitarianism of England without the Trinity. But then, in later years in the 20th century Unitarianism in the United States, became the UA, mostly social justice. I’m not a religious scholar but I do need to correct my post. I think my point I wanted to make was they were not the nationalist Christians of the Heritage Society, who are attempting to influence Congress and SCOTUS, as well as the broader citizenry to try to convince them that the founders practiced a religion such as they do today as religious right Christian nationalists, who is the support Trump as the ‘chosen one,’ (as Trump calls himself).
They were also hypocrits who excluded anyone who was not white or male or did not believe in their form of "god" while also owning humans and raping them and then raping their own daughters.
Not clear to whom you are referring. Please clarify. Thanks.
Valere, your insight and knowledge of these things blows me away. Now that winter's literally around the corner, instead of working out in the yard (my favorite kind of therapy), I'll definitely be spending more time at the library. A lot of what you've written here is new to me, so now I want to learn more. Thanks once again for sharing your knowledge!
Hi Dianne,
I do hope you can find an alternate therapy and if I may, I’d like to recommend Bob Cooley‘s resistance stretching. It’s a wonderful thing to do and takes the layers of stretch away in a way that you just couldn’t imagine happening. Based on yoga actually but he’s developed it into a unique program. It builds flexibility and strength. Bob Cooley has a website but I’m thinking the easiest way in case you’d like to access. It is to Google 16Geniuses.com
His Saturday morning zoom classes have been free, but if there is a charge, it is not much: perhaps $20 for an hour and a half on the zoom. Anyway, I thought in case if you’re not working in the yard and you want some fabulous truly beneficial exercise this might be an option. Also he does have YouTube that you can access let me know if you need more information because I have, a couple of telephone numbers I can share
I watched a terrific movie this afternoon. That’s on YouTube. It is absolutely incredible and is called “Unfit” filmed in 2020. George Conway is in it and mental health professionals; individuals who used to work closely with Trump; a security expert over the nuclear program. My senses that even Republicans watching this would be concerned about having him in office again. I highly recommend it.
Let me know if you watch it. Also, let me know if you need any information on Bob Cooley’s program. I don’t often recommend people in this way. But I’ve done stretching, swimming, yoga, lots of bodywork over many decades. Bob Cooley is an expert.
Thanks! Sounds like he has a good following. I'll need to check with my neurosurgeon to see if it's okay. Waiting (but not looking forward) to see him next month to schedule spine surgery. In a weird way, the timing sort of works out since it's not "growing season" here. Still want to read up on the history that we weren't taught in school decades ago. Am also going to check out that link.
Bravo Dianne!
PS #2: Diane, the research that you plan on doing this winter, which will educate you to what is truly happening in Congress and the Supreme Court of the United States and the executive branch, as well as what Trump is trying to do to our country by setting himself up as a dictator is exactly what Thomas Jefferson wanted every citizen to do. he wanted future citizen to be educated to be able to challenge in front. Confront elected leaders. Bravo to you. Research means that everyone contributes. It’s like having a brick wall and everyone brings their brick to it and then it’s built. And that’s what’s happening on this website every every single person is bringing, their piece of information and knowledge to make us stronger together. The more knowledge and information you have, the better able you will be to understand what Joyce is presenting to us. We help her when we become more knowledgeable. She is doing the heavy lifting for us but when we can absorb what she is saying and then carry that message to our community and family to help get the blue votes we need in 2024, it will help her message gain momentum and have wider coverage. She is confronting some major lies and untruths. So the more foundational we all can become, the more educated, the quicker we will be able to help with others, even though who have planned to vote Republican, to understand the true message that our democracy is very very much at risk right now.
Didn’t you say you were having surgery or is that another Diane?
V
💙
Nice, Valere. One slight correction. The UU Church was founded in 1961, so our Founders were not members. But many were Deists, as has been mentioned elsewhere, and there's an intellectual, spiritual confluence there with Unitarianism, I think.
Hi Peter, i’m not a religious scholar at all but the first formal body of the Unitarian church was formed in England in 1773. The members in America followed that formation. But for centuries before they were anti-Trinitarian, and there’s quite a history documented on the movement. Jeffersons, private papers from Monticello mentioned that his colleagues were Unitarian - while he had not joined them, he thought Unitarianism would be the religion of the United States. He had his own way of understanding Christianity, and he wrote extensively about that even constructing a kind of book of his own So that’s where I gained the thought that. The 1961 formation of UA did not necessarily incorporate all of the Unitarian philosophy. My senior professor’s mother was a lifelong member of the Unitarian church in Washington DC long before the 1961 creation of the UUA. We used to call the meetings or gatherings her ‘business meetings.’ Every Unitarian church member I have known has been a phenomenal social justice advocate, and I assume the lineage went back to those in England in the 1700s. Again I’m not a religious scholar at all and was repeating Jefferson’s writing without quoting. I’ve written elsewhere on this substract that I think someone should do an in-depth study or dissertation on the founders, including their religion. They absolutely wanted to separate religion out of our governing documents. Thanks for the clarification. I will make that clarifying note in my original post. 💙
Thanks so much, Valere, for the good reminder “not to just Google stuff.” I actually know better when I recall (I’m pretty sure about this) that a number of the Concord Transcendentalists were Unitarians, such as, perhaps, Emerson and the Alcotts, among others.
Hi Peter, I just know a tiny bit about any of the religions. As a young woman, I was offered a scholarship to Union Theological Seminary (master’s degree through PhD). I was invited to apply. I had applied to Harvard and Columbia and declined by both. Union said ‘ please apply, we have a place for you.’ I was recommended by someone who had been involved in civil rights, and who had become quite well-known in conflict, resolution, nominated for Nobel, etc.
So when I applied, I listed Hindu, Buddhist, Christian as my religion. I was raised by agnostic parents, so I really didn’t have much more to go on except my own exploration. So I had no ‘religion’ to write down in the application. Union suggested I write down ‘Episcopalian’ because that was the church funding my potential scholarship. I couldn’t say I would be an ‘Episcopalian’ because I couldn’t erase influences that were central to me. (As was atheism for that matter). I know some folks at Union were
surprised when I declined their offer and took another route to my formal education career. My sense is that with 8 billion people on the planet, there are many paths to a spiritual connection to God. And I respect those who join churches, and have religions in so doing. While I am not anti-religion, as many folks are, I’m also not a member of a religion. And I am very much opposed to religion being in the governance of our country. What other countries do is their own business. But I very much resent Christian nationalist trying to impose their brand of Christianity as a revisionist history of our constitution. I wish I were either a constitutional attorney or a scholar of religion, so could write more in-depth on this subject. I also wish someone would do a dissertation on the founders and publish it as a definitive source of the founders’ personal religions and choices, and how that framed the writing of the constitution. I think that would be a valuable study. I’m not history; I’m education policy with anthropology, political science, sociology, and history. This project on the backgrounds of founders needs a historian working on it:))
Some of them were actually considered rebels of their time.
And the Framers would have been aghast at the MAGA claim that God anointed Trump (or would anoint anyone) to make America great again. In a letter to Roger C. Weightman just days before he died, Thomas Jefferson referred to the notion of God-ordained rulers (Divine Right) as made possible only by the "monkish ignorance and superstition" of the people, something that general enlightenment and education would hopefully cure.
The two things that the Framers may have feared the most were Executive power run amok, and the powers of government being unduly influenced by religion...any religion. They did not found a monarchy or a theocracy.
💯!!
I must add that Jefferson was not at the Philadelphia Convention (he was in France at the time), and is therefore, technically speaking, not one the Framers. But he did make his thoughts on government known in his correspondence with James Madison. So there's that.
From what I’ve read it seems like he was pretty successful at keeping his fingers on the pulse of what was happening back home, and of making his own wishes known - often in subtle ways that were not always so visible to the public eye. :)
The men who founded the country didn't resemble these vote suppressing geeks. If they did, we'd have a country built for rich landowning men. But these men were different. They were oligarchs who made a country for the common man. I think I can say that if you look at the Tory government that's been in power for-- is it 13 years?-- there's nothing for any non-rich person now. They've got one answer to every financial question and that is austerity! Don't spend even 5 pence on anyone-- don't do it! So what if you have to wait ten years for your surgery or whatev? Remember the AIDS epidemic? There was a tainted blood scandal there at the beginning of AIDS. I guess that was forty years ago? Victims got their compensation last week.
We were already here and all the Indigenous Peoples whose land had been stolen. And no we have not.
?
Thoughts now of my grandmother. Born in 1882, she never learned to drive, never had much, always had enough. Every election she walked to the polling place, worked all day and walked home late. She did that almost to the day she died at the age of 87. I could tell it was really important to her.
My grandmother who spoke only Yiddish, and knew very few English words, would put on her finest dress (which really was very modest) and sit up straight with me as an eight year old and my mother and father to listen attentively and respectfully to OUR President FDR on our only radio even though she could understand virtually nothing! Made me very proud of my little family!
Ira ❣️ your grandmother can be very proud of you today:)
Thank you Valere; your comment makes me tear up because their immigrant experience in the “New World” was so prevalent regardless of religion or nationality. We all came together in WW11 without complaint, without criticism, and with a common experience of togetherness! Haven’t heard it that way since on a large scale, have you? Nor have we heard anything in this country since those days like the poison and hatred of tfg— everything is on the line, isn’t it? We must respond 100%— please go to www.TurnUp.US and help these brilliant and effective Harvard students help us win this battle for OUR democracy? Many thanks all of you!
I will go to Turnup.US and help in any way I am able - and will also share your recommendation. And your original post made me tear up as well, because I could feel the gratitude your grandmother had for her country and democracy. I think those of us who have seen or experienced countries without democracy, know the difference and feel a bit like kissing the tarmac every time we come home. Your grandmother knew the difference. It’s on the same topic (just not the one we’re facing at the moment). Have you by chance seen the movie ‘My Country, My Country’? It is so poignant, and makes one think about how easy it has been for us to vote. I saw the movie several years ago (then ordered my own copy because I wanted to show it to as many people as I could), and I am reminded of it again tonight as we are faced with losing our democracy.
Thank for that recommendation as I have never heard of it! I will follow up and being the softie I am about things like that, I’m sure it will bring back memories of our very multicultural population on the Lower East Side of NY, some of it not at all friendly or peaceful, but ultimately that past and it is very different there now.
Ira, ‘my country, my country’ was a documentary when Iraq was first allowed to have elections. But it’s so poignant because it speaks to how we take our voting rights for granted.
And Ellie, Susan, Someone and everyone!
Thanks Gail
Never had much; always had enough. I can’t tell you how much I like that. Contrast it to people who have much, but never enough.
Bella is the best girl with her chickens!
I ("heart") Bella.
I will be a poll worker next year after a hiatus of 10 years. I bet your post gave many a primer in election law. It is distressing how many do not know how elections run or how government works.
Our family matriarch at 94, my mom, makes it clear who she supports and no one in our family disagrees out loud. In fact most agree with her. She is our example of getting involved. Doing voter registration drives for both Jack and Bobby Kennedy.
Thank you.
Thanks for sharing the pics of your kids getting along😎.
It’s time that our fellow countrymen and women follow suit.
Prayers for peace not only here in our country but around the world.🙏🏼☮️🙏🏼
Can I just say that Cruz is a douche?? And, would it be too much for me to get a little bit of credit for NOT using a four-letter sentence enhancer before the "douche" part?? Asking for a friend...
Yes, you may say that. He has no core.
Why, thanks, Valere! I agree, there's just nuthin' there (kinda like TFG, actually, they're both empty vessels). Come to think of it, Cruz doesn't have a sense of humor, either. Well, it's looking like they've got more in common that I originally thought, and THAT's not a good thing!!
You are very welcome. You may say neither have a core. Or a shred of moral fiber. Cruz first used Cambridge Analytica (this was Steve Bannon‘s baby, developed from his knowledge as a former, black ops military officer) to obtain unauthorized data from 50 million Facebook accounts. Then when Cruz dropped out of the 2016 campaign, Cambridge analytica worked with Trump, giving Trump some 75 million unauthorized Facebook accounts for his 2016 presidential campaign.A CA employee turned whistleblower, testified to Congress that Steve Bannon ordered software that hooked CA To Facebook. The CA engineers were Russian, with ties to the Russian CIA equivalent. The CA CEO also testified that 100% of the Trump campaign’s data came from Cambridge Analytica. Then, Steve Bannon became Donald Trump‘s chief advisor in the White House. Facebook was fined $725 million for their part in this scheme. In an effort to put lipstick on the pig, FB who denied wrongdoing, changed their name to Meta. Bannon is doing his black ops warfare psychology for Trump six days a week on his War Room podcast. And his message continues to be that Trump won in 2020. And he directs his message to Republicans,. He was charged by the DOJ for fraud in a fundraising scheme for the border fence. Donald Trump pardoned him on his last day in office. He has spent all of his time from 2019 doing his psychological warfare promoting the idea that Trump won the election. He has trial May 2024 in New York State for the same fraud that DOJ charged him and for which Trump pardoned him. New York State has charged him because donation money came from New York. So be my guest: you may add Steve Bannon to the crew who have no moral fiber or ethics.
You're absolutely correct, and he's now adding to my list. Yeah, The Shit List! hah
Indeed, but remember them sparring in the primary?... TFG's standard response and preface to an attack was "Lyin' Ted..." and then there was the time he trotted out a pic of Melania and "a less than flattering" one of Teds' wife... and then Ted "went Nuclear" to defend his wife - but it was toothless and in word only... and of course "he kissed TFG's ring" once TFG got elected. Such a pandering hypocrite.
I always think he looks as though he was assembled by a committee.
He has no soul!
I completely agree with you and yes, credit on the sentence enhancer as well...i couldn't have held back.
Returned to being a poll worker this November after not doing it during COVID. In Maine there are 2 people at the registration check-in desk - one R and one D. The same is true in several other instances on voting day. There are contingencies and protocols for every imaginable problem that can come up; for every step of verifying machine numbers against numbers of ballots given out, etc. . VOTE. and give yourself time to make sure you're still on the rolls and at the right place (Maine makes it easy with same day registration - even on-site).
Maniacs got it straight!
I so love Bella. The big girl who’s a peacemaker. Lots of people look at a German Shepherd and they are instantly afraid. But just like in life first impressions can be so wrong. For example, for the homeless folks near my home are so polite. They are gracious, thank me for my little kindnesses, call me ma’am, etc. If only we could see each other as brothers and sisters. Hello, Republicans….are you listening?!!
It is never the dog that earns its rep. It is the humans that cause the bad to happen and the dog has to respond.
My first trip to vote is one I'll never forget. I voted for Adlai Stevenson . My husband and I had been married just two months and were renting an apartment. The landlady discovered I was a Democrat and my husband was Republican,, as she was. Thereafter I got the "cold shoulder." Television was pretty new where we lived and late on election-day afternoon she called and invited my husband to "Come upstairs and watch Eisenhower win". It was clear I was not invited.
My Mom worked every election as a voting clerk and I have always thanked the poll workers. To me, the vote is the bedrock of democracy, and my fear is that if Donald Trump is re-elected we may not have any more voting. along with all the people he is going to punish and government departments he's promising to gut. MAGAs need to wake up and realize what their world will be like if they keep on attending his rallies and voting for him.
.
Today I looked over at my 4 goats as they were feeding on their hay. What I saw was a 5th head buried in the hay that belonged to my Livestock Guard Dog named Harry. Harry was enjoying a little snack along with his goats. And so, Bella enjoys a little snack with her chickens. It all makes perfect sense.
I've often said there are times animals are better than people. Smart, caring, lovable...❤️
Probably all the time....
My Husky Wolf cross eats the horses' feed the horses drop while they are eating it. Lots would say never to allow this or that it was not possible they would get along. But it is possible and bec they are willing. I wish some humans had more integrity and willingness.
I hope she doesn’t get tummy upset from chicken feed. But on a serious note, I’m not sure if it was you or one of your sisters in law that said if Rudy wants to appeal he has to give 148 million to the court to hold while he appeals. If he loses they get their money. But I also heard that a lien has been placed on his NY apartment. Please advise which is true.
Cesar Milan says Bellas behavior starts with you
Pat yourself on the back
PRECISELY.
Giuliani moaning to the press that he couldn't testify is rich. He chose not to. The man does not know when to shut up.
It is likely that he is delusional because he sounds totally convinced:”stay tuned”he said confidently the night before the verdict! Of course he has no evidence and never has had any. The days for producing ANY evidence is three years past and after 60+ federal and state courts and even many Trump appointed judges threw the cases out the door! TFG is a bit harder to figure out because he is a born con job and bully but it would not be surprising that he also has convinced even himself that all of the truths are lies? What do you think?
Ira,
I think Trump is a manipulative sociopath. He knows exactly what he is doing. And he knows full well that he lost the election.
I’m not a psychologist, but basing my assessment on documented reports of his rhetoric that has supported and even led to hate crimes. He fabricates truth to advantage himself. He distorts facts from crowd size at his inauguration to discussions with heads of state. And he wants people to feel sorry for him. There is nothing delusional about what he is doing: it’s an orchestrated plan to keep his cultist Christian nationalist followers in tow. (they are the delusional by the way. He (Trump) knowing full well what he is doing and saying has convinced them that he is the Messiah. Remember also, when Bernie Madoff was interviewed in prison and the reporter asked him why he did what he did, he said, “I wanted people to feel sorry for me.” Madoff did not ever apologize for his crimes. I see some of that behavior in Trump. He likes portraying himself as a victim.
I can’t dispute that analysis and we probably will never know the answer but it really doesn’t matter, does it, because in a way he is unifying an overwhelming national majority against him and his dangerous maga minority? There has to be a time of reckoning both politically and legally or else it will destroy us! It may also result in violence, some destruction and hatred which will pit neighbor vs neighbor (in a larger sense)! But we are fortunate that Joe is in charge and he will use careful judgment in restraining the worst elements. Both great victories and very dim occasions are ahead of us but it must be resolved on many levels of government and ordinary society.
Wow! You have absolutely nailed it on every point. Americans indeed are coming together to oppose him. I cannot agree with you more about Joe. He was born for the job and I am so happy he is at the helm today and will be in 2024. I think also that we may have some marching in the streets as we did in the 60s. I think that will be a good thing because I think ultimately it will get rid of some of the crumb bums in Congress and let the Supreme Court know what we think about losing our rights.
Absolutely; I hope you bring your enthusiasm to help organize a HUGE Women March on DC in August in preparation for the biggest vote push in our history!!
Valere, I hope you are right. I’m looking for some glimmers that Americans will do the right thing. Joe has given some amazing speeches; lately, not so much. He needs to pull the country together. I am imagining the good people of America are silent right now and will appear in droves to vote out Republicans. How many times does Liz Cheney have to ask people NOT to vote Republican for Republicans to wake up?
I think if you look around, people are not silent even this early. So much happening! Producers creating all sorts of video. (See Eleven Films). Postcard & letter writing groups organizing. Digital warriors organizing. DNC state chairs organizing Democratic challengers for every office. SOOOOOO MUCH going on right now...there are too many to name. We're organizing and gearing up for the work in 2024.
I think you're right and so do the psychiatrists. Have you watched this? "Unfit"
https://youtu.be/ecJ02Rg5qaE?si=RDheNhqjXQjspV1F
Hi Pam,
No, I have not watched this - but I will get back to you after I do. I’m excited to take a look. Perhaps I should have watched it before responding to Ira, but did not know of it. There is just so much documentation on his head feels rhetoric and twisting of facts that I wrote knowing about that the the amount of documented public information could back up my assessment of sociopath. Thank you for sharing this link!
I’m at the beginning, only at the part where he says “”I am the chosen one.” Mika on Morning Joe has said: “I can say he’s crazy.” I have a strong cup of coffee and I’m fastening my seatbelt.
Thanks for the link.
Hi Beth, I’m watching the link Pam sent. I’m at the beginning with a strong cup of coffee, and I’m fastening my seatbelt: he has said “I am the chosen one.” I have a feeling this is going to be the best hour and 24 minutes of downtime given myself in months.
I just watched the first 3 1/2 minutes and paused...don't know if it's gonna be the "best" hour and 24 minutes 😵💫
His irrational and delusional behavior is well defined by megalomania when they lose power.
Linked firmly to narcissistic personality disorder and psychopathy.
Exactly. 💯🎯 an extreme example.
Just like his benefactor!
Bella. This is the best!
I was at a Holiday party last weekend and found myself at the dinner table with Republicans. I stayed calm and asked questions. Bottom line is they are voting based on the price of hamburger. I don’t even eat mammals, vote on saving our rights (starting with the right for everyone to vote and for it to count) and trying to find a way to give people opportunities, even the least among us. I was surprised that they know nothing about what Trump is saying he plans to do. They think they’re supporting the constitution and the libs aren’t.
Willful ignorance?
And the ones who are listening to Trump, think it's great that he wants to be a dictator.
"consider putting real meaning into her words and signing up to work the polls"
Also consider encouraging nationwide vote by mail. No lines, no polls, no time off work needed.dßq
Amen.