Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

I know this must be bad for Joe Biden, I just don’t know how.

Despite his magical powers, I don’t think Trump is thinking this through, to be honest.

No offense, but this thread hasn’t been about you for quite a while.

JFC, are there no editors left at that goddamn rag?

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Their freedom requires your slavery.

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Republican obstruction dressed up as bipartisanship. Again.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

Let’s not be the monsters we hate.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

A thin legal pretext to veneer over their personal religious and political desires

Tick tock motherfuckers!

It may be funny to you motherfucker, but it’s not funny to me.

Wow, I can’t imagine what it was like to comment in morse code.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

When I decide to be condescending, you won’t have to dream up a fantasy about it.

Insiders who complain to politico: please report to the white house office of shut the fuck up.

People are complicated. Love is not.

Too often we hand the biggest microphones to the cynics and the critics who delight in declaring failure.

T R E 4 5 O N

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

You are here: Home / Open Threads / Excellent Links / Saturday Morning Open Thread: ‘Without Optimism, We’ve Already Failed’

Saturday Morning Open Thread: ‘Without Optimism, We’ve Already Failed’

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All blessings to you, Mr. Takei:

… Looking at what’s happened in recent years — the anti-Asian hate around the coronavirus, the Muslim [travel] ban — do you see progress?

Some progress and some getting worse. The Muslim travel ban, when that happened, I recognized it as the same thing. You know, the sweeping presumption that we were spies and saboteurs. And the sweeping presumption that Muslim people are all potential terrorists. You know, same thing.

But when Trump signed that — and that was [among] his very first executive order[s] — thousands of young Americans, many lawyers, rushed to their airports throughout the country to welcome Muslim people coming to this country and offer advice and representation. And Sally Yates, the deputy attorney general, said to Trump: I will not defend this executive order. That was all very heartening to me. And it showed that we had made progress. We had learned from our experience.

But on the southern border, young children, babies are torn away from their mothers. How inhumane, how barbaric, can the United States become? [In the internment camps,] we were always intact as a family. So we’ve become worse in that respect. So a few steps forward, but also some horrific steps backwards.

Do you remember how old you were when you started asking questions about the experience?

My asking questions intensified as I grew older. And in my early teens, my father, who I realize now, what an unusual, rare person he was, he started discussing the internment with me in our after-dinner conversations. My father was unusual in that respect, I discovered later on, because so many other Japanese American parents of my parents’ generation didn’t talk about their experience with their children. Because either they were so ashamed by it or so pained, so hurt by it, that they didn’t want to inflict that on their children. All the children knew was that they were in camp.

You know, my father said resilience is not all just teeth-gritting determination. It’s also the strength to find and see beauty in an ugly situation. To be able to find joy, make our joy, behind barbed wires and all these people wallowing in their misery. Some were angry. Some were completely devastated, and marriages were breaking up — and he said, we’ve got to develop a community. And he was a baseball player in San Francisco as a young man and played with a Japanese American team. And he said, we’ve got to build a baseball diamond. And that brought people together, working as a team. And teenagers had nothing to do and they needed to have fun. So after the mess hall dinner, he negotiated with the camp command to have the guards bring a record player over, and they had dances. I remember, our barrack was right across from the mess hall. And my mother put us to sleep. And I drifted off to sleep hearing the big band sound of Tommy Dorsey and Benny Goodman wafting over the night air from the mess halls. And so, you know, resilience takes many, many different forms…

And America, to a large extent, doesn’t know its American history. People that I considered well-read, well-informed people, when I told them about my childhood, were aghast that something like that happened. And so that made me think, I’m going to have to do a bit more storytelling.…

There’s been a recent backlash against stories about the uglier side of American history, especially around what can be taught in the classroom, with [criticism] of critical race theory and the banning of books.

Fanatics — they’re passionately opposed to something that doesn’t exist. I mean, that’s the kind of craziness that we had to put up with during the war. In the vast scope of American history, this kind of fanaticism — which is what that is, they don’t even know what they’re talking about, and they’re getting all excited and passionate and carrying guns about it, you know — this will pass. Our focus and our energy has to be put into education. A people’s democracy is existentially dependent on an educated citizenry.

And my effort is just a small effort on a short chapter of American history. Our story is four years. The African American story is four centuries. It’s a big story to be told. But each person telling small stories and fitting it into this panorama of American history will ultimately prevail. I’m optimistic because of people like Sally Yates and the people that rush to the airports after the Muslim travel ban. I maintain that without optimism, we’ve already failed. So we need optimistic people to be hanging in there. Otherwise, it’s going to be a dystopian society. I don’t subscribe to that. Our democracy is a precious form of government. A people’s democracy. And it’s optimistic people who have faith in the ideals of our democracy that’s going to make it survive…

We’ve got to make America understand that we have great ideals, shining ideals, noble words — equal justice, rule of law — they’re noble words. But they’re just words on paper. They take on substance, meaning, when we take on the responsibility. This is a people’s democracy, and the people have to give meaning to those words.

Reader Interactions

139Comments

  5. 5.

    debbie

    Wow, just as I pressed “post comment” on my previous comment, George Takei is being interviewed on NPR! ?

  12. 12.

    Gin & Tonic

    @debbie: I struck out yesterday. Shame, share, shale, fuck me.

    PS: The Ukrainian one, when you have 33 letters instead of 26, is harder.

  13. 13.

    Spanky

    Fanatics — they’re passionately opposed to something that doesn’t exist.

    What a perfect phrase.

  15. 15.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Whoa.

    Zoanthids glowing in UV light on the Malabar Hill rocky shore in Mumbai, India. A group of sealife enthusiasts is documenting a wealth of species thriving in the shadow of India’s most populous city, from glowing coral to octopuses
    Photograph: Sarang Naik

  16. 16.

    Geeno

    @SiubhanDuinne: I had the first three letters with my second guess, and it still took me three more guesses to get it finally. I was getting very concerned there for a minute.

  17. 17.

    NotMax

    Found The King’s Man rattling around Hulu. Had been curious about it since the trailers hinted at a rollicking adventure flick. While a not terrible, if brashly inconsistent, watch overall it is far removed from what was anticipated. Grade: B. The entire confrontation scene with Rasputin, while taking substantial liberties with actual history, is so elegantly choreographed it’s alone worth the price (if there were any) of admission.

  19. 19.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @phdesmond: The museum at Manzanar documents alot of this stuff with photos of the interned playing baseball, gardening, having dances etc.  And artwork done by the children.  It’s incredibly moving.  The incredible resilience of people always amazes me.

  20. 20.

    debbie

    @Geeno:

    Weird how that works. There was a word earlier this week (s***e) that lots of Twitterers struck out on and whined about, but I got it in 3. I’ve struck out twice since starting to play it.

  27. 27.

    MomSense

    I adore George Takei.

    I fell asleep early last night and then was wide awake at 230 for several hours. Sometime around 3:30 a.m. I thought it would be a good idea to buy a sweater’s worth of poppy red linen yarn for a KAL (knit along). This morning I’m wondering if 900 a.m. me is bold enough to wear the 330 a.m. me color choice.

  30. 30.

    Stevie

    My father never talked about the school. The few times he did he was trying to tell funny stories but it was a prison for children so they were horror stories. He never spoke about the sister who disappeared. Her name was Margaret Irvine and I can’t find out what happened to her. There’s a great big hole in my past.

  34. 34.

    Josie

    I sometimes feel that my adult life has been a series of revelations of the things I should have learned in school – the Japanese in internment camps, Bury My Heart At Wounded Knee, the fact that Gone With the Wind was so terribly racist, etc.  I have tried to make sure that my own children and the children I have taught  were exposed to the truth, but now there is one more truth from Mr. Takei, that resilience includes seeing beauty even in the difficult days.  What a lesson.

  36. 36.

    narya

    @MomSense: Yes! You will! Red is NOT a color I can wear, but I love seeing it on folks who can wear it well. (I was a redhead, and it clash(ed/es) with both the hair AND skin tone–even now that I’m mostly grey.)

    Trying to keep busy to keep the worry at bay; I realized, during the questioning from the pre-surgery nurse yesterday, that I haven’t been under general anesthesia since I was 8, so now I can fret about THAT, too. Instead, I’m gonna cook and cook and cook–having a freezer full of food is always a little comforting.

  37. 37.

    MomSense

    @NotMax:

    I think my son and I are going to watch this today.  We’ve been watching oversimplified history and now armchair history videos on YouTube. This could be a fun spinoff for us.  The oversimplified WWI and Russian Revolution videos are some of my favorite.
    The YouTube videos are animated.  Oversimplified history videos are really funny and clever.  The armchair historian videos present more information, but without the humor.

  38. 38.

    Jeffery

    @SiubhanDuinne: Clear your web data and history then redo it. (If you do clear everything you lose all your passwords and have to resign into everything that requires one.) If I get stuck I cheat using goole searching  five letter words with the letters that are correct. I channel my inner republican and am allowed to do whatever I want.

  40. 40.

    MomSense

    Thank you all for confirming my middle of the night color craving!  It’s a wow color for sure.

    @narya:

    I’m with you.  I filled my freezer with food and bought a freezer’s worth for oldest kid which is in my car.  I’ll drive it up to him today and check in on him. I did quite a bit of knitting in the middle of the night while checking for news from Ukraine.

    Putin seems like such a wild card right now and I don’t know how far he will take this.  And if our intelligence sources are as close to him as it seems, he is likely spinning.

  43. 43.

    Baud

    @Gin & Tonic:

    China’s foreign minister Wang Yi tells #MSC2022 that the sovereignty, independence & territorial integrity of every country should be safeguarded until the closing ceremonies are over.

     
    Hopefully, Vlad will listen to China.

  48. 48.

    MomSense

    @NotMax:

    Will do.  We watched The Death of Stalin earlier this week. It took my son a little time to adjust, but he really liked it.  There was a reference in oversimplified history (I think it was the Cold War episodes) to Stalin’s stroke not being treated properly because he had locked up all the good doctors so he was primed for the movie.

  49. 49.

    debbie

    @Baud:

    Is this the same China that issued a joint statement with Russia a couple of weeks ago proclaiming themselves democracies? //

  53. 53.

    Gin & Tonic

    And for background, this thread has some interesting observations by a Black scholar in Ukraine. Worth the read. But now I have to go do stuff.

    One reason I *think* many can’t see Ukrainians as oppressed is because (and this is a WORKING THEORY) they see them as too white to be systemically abused or colonized to evoke sympathy.
    — Terrell Jermaine Starr (@Russian_Starr) February 19, 2022

  54. 54.

    MomSense

    @zhena gogolia:

    He also doesn’t look well.  Did you see the images of him with Xi from earlier this month?  His face is a little difficult to read because of all the Botox and fillers, but even still he doesn’t look well.

  57. 57.

    Matt McIrvin

    The question I keep asking myself and can’t answer is how we keep atrocities from engulfing America without becoming monsters ourselves. If the people trying to set up a right-wing autocracy have rigged all the levers of power, and are so unreachable and deranged that the only way to defeat them is to kill them, and are just betting that we’re too soft to kill them or if we try, they have the cops and most of the guns and the bombs, then what? What is the non-monster option? Where is the room for optimism here? Is it just, let the fascists take over and wait another 70 or 100 years for the contradictions in the system to accumulate?

    The only way the Nazis were defeated was by bombing and burning the whole country, and no outside Allied force is going to invade us this time. The US internment camps, meanwhile, were an atrocity committed largely by liberals–people way, way more liberal than the people who seem destined to rule us.

  62. 62.

    Sloane Ranger

    @SiubhanDuinne: I got it, but it took me all six tries. I didn’t get a single letter on my first try!

    It was pretty much the same a few days ago, when the word was pretty obscure.

  65. 65.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Stevie: That’s so sad.  It’s wild how recent it all was.  I play tennis some times with a Japanese-American man who is in his 60’s.  His mother was interned in WA.  Really good guy.  He often surprise me by showing up at marches and protests for police reform or Planned Parenthood and other stuff, that I’ve notified him about.  Which I really appreciate.

  68. 68.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Matt McIrvin:  If the people trying to set up a right-wing autocracy have rigged all the levers of power, and are so unreachable and deranged that the only way to defeat them is to kill them, and are just betting that we’re too soft to kill them or if we try, they have the cops and most of the guns and the bombs, then what?

    I don’t accept your premise.

  70. 70.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @NotMax: It’s pretty good but it was an HBO movie from the early 90’s when their movies weren’t quite at the prestige-level they are now.  Still, such a great story and Rickman is always a joy to watch and kind of perfect for the role.

  76. 76.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @Gin & Tonic: Meh. The Chinese are saying that so that they can justify/demand their continued beat-down on all the semi-autonomous states and peoples who want nothing to do with China (or as I’ve been told by my Mongolian friends “the Han”).

  78. 78.

    Le Comte de Monte Cristo, fka Edmund Dantes

    OT – Have been chortling over the imagery coming out of Ottawa. It’s both a soothing balm and an aphrodisiac after the soft treatment of the Bundy types and the 1/6/21 assholes.

    Moral of the story – don’t let them entrench themselves.

    “Fook aroond and find oot.”

  79. 79.

    Geminid

    It’s a big day in Las Vegas for Nevada 1st Congressional District candidate Amy Vilela. Representative Cori Bush and Nina Turner will campaign in support of Vilela, who is challenging 6-term Rep. Dana Titus. Then Turner, who could not hold on to a 30 point lead in last year’s OH-11 primary, will address a Nevada State Democratic party meeting tomorrow. The subject: “How to turn Nevada Blue.”

    On a happier note, Senator Cortez-Masto has been doing well with fundraising, and would-be challenger Adam Laxalt faces a primary contest with another well funded candidate, Sam Brown. The Nevada primary will be in June.

  80. 80.

    germy

    Warmongers argue that we must protect Ukraine because it is a “democracy.” But they’re lying. Ukraine isn't actually a democracy. To hold onto power, Ukraine's president shut down the 3 TV stations that criticized him, and imprisoned… pic.twitter.com/F5RD2DrmRf

    — Tulsi Gabbard ? (@TulsiGabbard) February 19, 2022

    What on earth was she doing on a Democratic primary debate stage? I know we’re a big tent but…

  83. 83.

    Another Scott

    @zhena gogolia:

    “Apres moi, le deluge.” – Vladimir Putin, Roi des Russes. https://t.co/Y5uPlfYqvN

    — DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) February 19, 2022

    Google Translate of what he’s replying to (original in French):

    Gérard Araud @GerardAraud

    I was in favor of doing everything to open negotiations with Russia. The Biden administration, the president @EmmanuelMacron and Chancellor Scholz were right to do so. But the time has come to conclude that Russia is not interested in it on its side.

    Yeah, there’s more than a little whiff of “indispensable man” about VVP. He seems to need to learn the hard way…

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  84. 84.

    TheflipPsyd

    @MomSense:  My 11 year old son introduced me to History Bombs a couple of years ago and we enjoy watching them. There are a number of “in one takes” that are just fun to watch. My son has developed a love of history and his knowledge of early 20th century history is pretty amazing now. I am on a phone and cannot do a link but if you search history bomb on you tube, you’ll see a number of videos.

  91. 91.

    Cermet

    We are so fu*king racist it isn’t even close so that phase “Land of the free” is a joke and unless that only means white male with money (sorry poor white trash but your stupidity is only exceeded by your racism.)  That all said, every other country is racist too and the vast majority far, far more so. Now that too all said, we are the country that prides itself on being a ‘mixing pot’ so our hypocrisy is plainly on display (through here too, we aren’t the worst offenders by a long shot.)

  92. 92.

    germy

    My most deeply held, brand new opinion is that Biden should deploy the same style of info-ops he’s devised to deter and/or expose Putin to similarly anticipate and spoil Republican demagogic tactics here at home (adjusted for domestic politics and law, etc etc).

    — Brian Beutler (@brianbeutler) February 19, 2022

  94. 94.

    MomSense

    @Matt McIrvin:

    I’m struggling with this every day.  One of the reasons I haven’t been able to sleep is because I have been thinking about the teachers I’ve known and some friends and family who survived NAZIs murdering their whole families and more horrors of that war, Soviet invasion and takeover, living under the Soviet shitshow, defection, and life after what they endured.  I’ve been thinking about my Congolese, Senegalese, Eritrean and Somalian friends who are trying to make their lives in Maine.  They have experienced trauma, separation, and life in about the most opposite place possible where the reception is, let’s just say, not always friendly.

    I think we have to fight and somehow hold on to the joys, beauty,  and connections that keep us human.

  96. 96.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @debbie: A guy I worked with stepped onto an *elevator that wasn’t there.* Fell 3 stories and scrambled his brains. Never worked again. I took a number of falls myself, so I’m on a first name basis with the pain. And yet, sometimes I just can’t help laughing.

    **It is surprising how often that happens. There are several OSHA regs specific to elevators on job sites, yet time and again they get shirked and inevitably somebody pays for it, just not the ones responsible.

  97. 97.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Nina Turner might say, “but Nevada isn’t the right kind of Blue. I’ve read that the Democratic Socialists of America gained control of the Nevada party apparatus last year, so Turner will have a receptive audience.

  100. 100.

    Ken

    @OzarkHillbilly: I saw an OSHA inspection report of Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory* a while back. Humorous, obviously, but by the book as far as regulations. The most frequent citation was for lack of handrails.

    * The Gene Wilder one, of course.

  101. 101.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MomSense: One of the answers I keep hearing is “get out” but (1) it seems like a bad, pissant answer when there are like a hundred categories of people above me on the list of people in danger from a fascist American government, and (2) to where? This country is my home and the danger we’re dealing with also seems like one that’s present everywhere in the world. If I go somewhere else it may just be a place that’s a little less far along in the same process. Maybe I’ve saved my own ass but that’s the only thing I’ve saved.

    I had a conversation about this with a black South African in the apartheid era who categorically rejected emigration as a solution to anything, I don’t see why it should be the first thing I think of

    I do worry about making compromises to survive that just end up empowering the bad guys. The temptation is going to be there.

  104. 104.

    Geminid

    @germy: Tulsi Gabbard used to be a Democrat; now I doubt if she even claims to be inside the tent. She’ll always be a “former Democratic Congresswoman,” but the next time she runs it will be as an independent. Maybe Peter Thiel will back a Gabbard/Yang ticket in 2024.

  105. 105.

    RaflW

    Anyone on here this morning who lives in MO? Thoughts about Lucas Kunce? The seat is considered ‘safe R’ but it’s just so damn frustrating to see MO be so poorly represented in the Senate. Is Greitens likely to win the GOP primary? If so, there’s at least some rumblings that Kunce has a shot.

  109. 109.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @Baud: Yep, who does the govt think it is keeping carpenters safe from unscrupulous contractors? The Goddess Ayn Rand certainly wouldn’t approve.

  110. 110.

    Ken

    @Baud: Typical inefficiency. If government kept out of it, we’d have twice as many jobs. True, they’d be for osteopathic surgeons, physical therapists, and morticians instead of in construction.

  111. 111.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Geminid: Maybe Peter Thiel will back a Gabbard/Yang ticket in 2024.

    Do you wanna tempt the wrath of the whatever high atop the thing?

  112. 112.

    Baud

    @Ken:

    True, they’d be for osteopathic surgeons, physical therapists, and morticians instead of in construction.

     
    LOL. Like working people could pay for that if it weren’t for government. People think it’s bad now, wait till we are truly free in the GOP sense of the word.

  113. 113.

    Geminid

    @Baud: Nevada Democrats were somehow able to win two Senate seats and the Governorship before Turner’s friends took over. But the win in the Nevada caucuses probably was the high water mark of the 2020 Sanders campaign. Ms. Villela has not forgotten that happy day:

        Two years ago our NV Bernie family was celebrating our landslide caucus win with @Senator Turner in downtown Vegas. This weekend, we’ll be together again for a Bernie Reunion Happy Hour! Get your tickets today & join is at 5pm on Saturday.

    @Amy Villela Feb 17 2022

  114. 114.

    RaflW

    Thinking about the OP, have folks watched High on the Hog on Netflix? We had a friend over for dinner last night and we ended up watching ep. 1 after we ate, at his recommendation. I thought it was really good. The Times did a writeup that I’d missed from last year, but it’s about the connections between West Africa and American food, via the slave trade and blending foods into US Black cuisine.

    The Times also offered this essay about it by Osayi Endolyn. “The nature of being Black American is to always be reintroducing yourself to your history. … This is because, as in many historical tales, the full truth has never been the dominant narrative, and has at times been ruthlessly obscured.”

    Said by Endolyn in May of last year, the CRT madness has only increased. But at least ‘banning CRT’ won’t change Netflix (unless we let it). Check it out if you haven’t but have access. I may look for the book on which the series is based, High on the Hog by Jessica B. Harris.

  115. 115.

    MomSense

    @Matt McIrvin:

    Wherever you go, there you are – which country in the world isn’t affected by what happens in the US? And this fucking ethno nationalism is spreading.
    I think we stay and fight, especially if we are white.  We have a responsibility to put ourselves in the way, to stand in the gap.  I’m struggling with how. We have to do something about the propaganda outlets like Fox, OANN, etc.  Then there are the states that are disenfranchising voters and fucking with who counts the votes and deciding whose votes are counted.
    I would really like some direction.  I’m ready to do something more than the usual, but I don’t know what to do.  Part of the unease I think a lot of us feel is that we know we need to act but we aren’t sure what to do.

  116. 116.

    Matt McIrvin

    @MomSense: If the answer turns out to be “get a gun and shoot a bunch of people” I don’t think I have it in me. Hell, I’ve been trying to keep Republicans from killing themselves with COVID though I’m increasingly not sure why.

  117. 117.

    Brachiator

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    On a related note, don’t have a Times subscription but this looks interesting. Maybe someone can copy/paste an excerpt…:

    A related article from Politico. America’s Forgotten Internment.

    Also, some people forget, or do not know, that Canada mistreated their citizens of Japanese ancestry, and sent many to camps. This affected at least 23,000 Japanese Canadians.

  120. 120.

    RaflW

    @MomSense: “I’m ready to do something more than the usual, but I don’t know what to do.  Part of the unease I think a lot of us feel is that we know we need to act but we aren’t sure what to do.”

    A couple of thoughts (for any/all of us): Become an election judge. Join and get active with the League of Women Voters. Even in blue states. If your state’s S.O.S. is up for election, campaign for the Dem candidate. Run for school board (Run for Something can help.)

    I’d also invite people to check out UU the Vote. It is nominally faith-based, but Unitarian Universalism is both a very religiously liberal tradition, and not a proselytizing faith. We don’t care if you’re atheist (my atheist partner is an ordained UU minister! He just served an humanist UU congregation for 8 years), Hindu, Muslim, lapsed or active protestant or Catholic, witch, breatharian, whatevs.

    Anyway, UU the Vote did kick ass organizing for 2020, and we’re gearing up right now for the mid-terms. It’s nonpartisan work, but with a clear racial justice analysis. We know where to register voters, where to push election integrity and ballot access issues, etc. We’re scrappy, punch above our weight, have lots of local partners on the ground in ‘battle’ states. But we need more people! We’re a small faith. And welcome all to help in the ’22 and ’24 democracy-defining elections.

  123. 123.

    Geminid

    @Matt McIrvin: You could try closing your eyes, taking deep breaths, and imagining that Republicans are Coyotes and that you are a Donkey:

    Donkeys keep predators away by:

    Braying loudly and stomping their feet: sending warning signals that they’re prepared to fight if provoked.

    Kicking out: using their hard hooves to prevent coyotes getting close.

    Charging and chasing: running towards the predator and displaying their size.

    Picking them up by the neck and shaking them wildly: causing injury that can disable or injure.

    But it’s not that donkeys are not afraid of predators (especially coyotes). It’s just that they choose to stay and hold their ground.

       firsttimefarming.com Jan.21 2021

    The Donkey is an apt symbol for the Democratic party.

  124. 124.

    Miss Bianca

    @MomSense: I’ve seen you *and* heard you on Zoom, and I say you not only have the boldness to wear that color, you will BLOOM in that color, so I say, “go for it!”

  125. 125.

    H.E.Wolf

    @Matt McIrvin: “If the people trying to set up a right-wing autocracy have rigged all the levers of power, and are so unreachable and deranged that the only way to defeat them is to kill them, and are just betting that we’re too soft to kill them or if we try, they have the cops and most of the guns and the bombs, then what? What is the non-monster option?”​

    One non-monstrous option is to look to the example of Black Americans and the Civil Rights Movement. What you describe is similar to much of the Black experience in America, over the 4 centuries that George Takei mentions, above.

    My favorite book about the Civil Rights Movement is a collection of oral histories, which is still in print: My Soul is Rested. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/My_Soul_Is_Rested

  126. 126.

    Miss Bianca

    @Geminid: Err…I thought Nevada had *already* turned blue?

    ETA: “Oh, it’s just Harry Reid blue! Nina Turner blue is BETTER!”

    I see.

  128. 128.

    StringOnAStick

    @Miss Bianca: Las Vegas is blue, but Reno and the capital Carson City are red, as are rural areas (mostly dependent on mining and ranching).  I wonder how Covid has impacted Vegas because it is so tourism dependent.

  129. 129.

    Another Scott

    @Geminid: Donkeys help other animals, also too.  (repost) ScienceNews.org:

    […]

    In the American Southwest, wild donkeys and horses often dig into the dusty sediment to reach cool, crystal clear groundwater to quench their thirst. New research shows this equid ingenuity has far reaching benefits for the ecosystem.

    Equid wells can act as desert oases, providing a major source of water during dry times that benefits a whole host of desert animals and keystone trees, researchers report in the April 30 Science.

    Introduced to North America in the last 500 years or so, wild donkeys and horses are often cast as villains in the West. These species can trample native vegetation, erode creek beds and outcompete native animals. But when Erick Lundgren, a field ecologist at Aarhus University in Denmark, first observed wild donkeys digging wells in 2014, he wondered whether these holes might benefit ecosystems, similar to the way elephant-built water holes can sustain a community in the African savanna.

    […]

    CITATIONS
    E.J. Lundgren et al. Equids engineer desert water availability. Science. Vol. 372, April 30, 2021, p. 491. doi: 10.1126/science.abd6775.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  130. 130.

    MomSense

    @RaflW:

    Shoot, how did I miss UU the vote? I’m a UU PK. I’ll check it out. My local congregation doesn’t have a liaison or chapter.  We’ve been in the interim process so things are in flux.

    @Miss Bianca:

    ?

  131. 131.

    opiejeanne

    @Stevie: Where was Margaret interned, and how old was she? Was Irvine her married name

    I’ve done a lot of sleuthing for my own family, and I might be able to help you get an answer.

  132. 132.

    Mart

    The parents of my best friend in high school each received $20,000 during the Reagan administration for their time in American concentration camps. Remember the neighbors bitching at them about what had they done to deserve that kind of money. Their sprawling multi family farm was stolen from them while in “camp” with no consequences to the thieves. Their way of life destroyed. $40,000 was pennies on the dollar.

  133. 133.

    Geminid

    @H.E.Wolf: Among other topics, Stacey Abrams speaks about her intent to overcome Republican voter suppression in an interview in Atlanta.CapitalBnews.org, titled “Stacey Abrams and her vision for ‘One Georgia’.”

    The story dates from about ten days ago, and has some good stuff from a shrewd political thinker and expert communicator.

  134. 134.

    Villago Delenda Est

    Morons wearing MAGA hats are far more likely to be terrorists than anyone Asian or Muslim.

  135. 135.

    Subsole

     

     

    @Geminid:

    @Baud:

    Aren’t they the ones poasting guillotine memes and all that??

    Like, a little extreme even by DSA standards??

     

    @Ken: Nah. All the doctors would be either deported or too busy learning how to Pray the Gay Away down at St. God’s Medical Reeducation Academy.

  136. 136.

    evodevo

    @Geminid: Yep…a LOT of people here in KY who raise sheep keep a donkey or two…excellent watchdogs who work 24/7 for the price of a bag of horsefeed…they don’t care if it’s the neighbor’s pitbull or a coyote – they will go after it relentlessly until it leaves or they stomp it into the ground.

  137. 137.

    Dopey-o

    @RaflW: Is Greitens likely to win the GOP primary? If so, there’s at least some rumblings that Kunce has a shot.

    i am putting all my support behind Greitens. Once he clears the primary, women will will come out of the woodwork with tales of abuse. He is loathed by the Missouri GOP hierarchy, but they may close ranks the way they did for Trump.

    Any other GOP candidate will walk away with the Senate seat. Missouri went 17% for TFG, because we are motivated by hate and vinegar and ignorance and spite. And racism and stupidity and self-destructive urges. And meth and oxy and alcohol abuse.

    And hate is a way of life.

  138. 138.

    Dan B

    @UncleEbeneezer: We have friends and had in laws who were at Minidoka.  The in laws died in a high speed crash on the way back to Seattle from their yearly visit to Minidoka.

    I thought everyone knew about the interment and how many Japanese Americans lost their farms, homes, and businesses to white neighbors.

  139. 139.

    Tehanu

    @Matt McIrvin: ​
     

    This country is my home

    Exactly. The rightwing think they are the only “real” Americans and they’ve already done their damnedest to make the flag and patriotism theirs alone. It amazes me how they can believe that about themselves when they quite obviously do not believe that “all men are created equal” or any of the other political ideals that are supposed to be the entire basis of this country.

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