[Below is comment I put on
Richard Johnson's July 12th Facebook post re Stephen Miller]
Blogging Eagle
[Comment from Dennis Craig]
Dennis CraigBlogging Eagle The sycophant dynamic goes both ways in terms of obsession over individuals. I would relish a conversation about the ideals we espouse and the ways in which we can supplant obsessive, negative loops with progressive, creative, and what are known in math and music circles as “Strange Loops”. Perhaps Alex Boote and I could host a series of discussions around the book “Godel, Escher, and Bach: The Eternal Golden Braid” perhaps? That would be a hoot!
I’m all for discussing current politics but focusing on the travesties of one figurehead - just a part of much more onerous hegemon - is very much missing the forest for the trees and an intended red herring. Don’t fall for it. Furthermore, really wise to resist consuming one’s time with negative focal loops such as these… if you can. Indeed rage and anger holds power and when it aligns with justice often impossible to subsume. And yet, there is a way to resist through supporting alternatives. Creative market incentives are impossible to ignore. Necessity always the mother of invention. Good ideas prevail.
That said… There’s stuff going on behind the scenes and intermingled in all that’s going on socially, economically, geo-politically that would burn off both your ears… That much I’m certain I can say.
Good night and Good luck.
Good Thoughts, Good Words, Good Deeds…
Rule 1 of Sailors: Sail Fast! Godspeed.
Rule 1 of Builders: A Mason is obliged by his tenure to obey the moral law.
Build it true.
Judy Woodruff's America at a Crossroads series For more than two years PBS's Judy Woodruff has been travelling around the country conducting focus group type conversations examining the many divisions fracturing the United States and trying to bridge the worsening national partisan divide.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/tag/america-at-a-crossroads.
"Eagles Mere talks about Donald Trump" seeks to be in the vein of Judy Woodruff's work and goal.
I think any interested Eagles Mere person should ask themself "do I wish to try to contribute in my small way to lessening the worsening partisan divide" and, if the person's answer is yes, the person should think about what they would say if they had the opportunity to stand up in front of other Eagles Mere persons and speak their thoughts for other Eagles Mere persons to hear.
From Facebook
Blogging EagleHere is my July 4th column in this morning‘s Washington Post:
Anyone paying close attention to the news might well ask themselves what on earth there is to celebrate this Fourth of July. But we must celebrate, or they win, in the paranoid sense of “they.” They want the day, but we can’t let them have it. Independence Day is America’s day. Sure, we bleeding-heart nervous cases are teetering on the edge of despair, but that is exactly why I am calling for us to move into a new phase of resistance: hope and joy. In ghastly times, these are subversive.
No, no, come back. Hear me out. Many years ago, writer Caroline Myss traveled to Russia to speak at an international conference on healing, peace, kindness and other themes that caused my aging California hippie heart to soar. As she later told me, every single travel element that could go horribly wrong did — a 24-hour flight delay, interminable layovers, and when she finally got to Moscow, her hotel reservation had fallen through and she ended up sleeping on a stranger’s floor.
Two days afterward, on a train to the conference, Myss started whining to the elderly man seated next to her, detailing the minutiae of her disastrous travels. He listened compassionately, nodding and sighing with empathy. When she was done, the man was silent for a moment and then introduced himself as someone who worked with the Dalai Lama. He said gently that they both believed that when a lot of difficult and chaotic things were going on all at once, it was to protect something fragile and beautiful that was trying to get itself born.
I love this story because I know my ways, my habit of catastrophic thinking and my tiny, unresolved control issues. Without intervention, I might hover anxiously over some random beautiful thing that was coming into existence, breathe my hot worried breath down its neck and make notations on my clipboard with my always excellent ideas for everyone in the world and all of life.
I believe this is what we are seeing in D.C.: The daily chaos, cruelty and incoherence of the Republican regime sucks all the focus and energy out of the room, while offstage, something amazing is coming together. Jeez, even that nice Tulsi Gabbard has gotten caught in the crossfire. And brother Elon, ay yi yi. There’s nothing more schadenfreudy than crab people turning on one another, MAGAs eating each other, a political suicide triggered by their big, stinking bill: Be still, my heart.
Friday, I will be celebrating the coming midterms.
Upward of 4 million people showed up for historic and life-affirming “No Kings” marches a few weeks ago, and that was despite President Donald Trump having militarized the National Guard to squelch immigration protests in Los Angeles. A half-dozen friends of mine did not turn up out of the not-unreasonable fear of police violence — but were later frustrated with themselves because all of us who did go were euphoric.
I tormented them for days, because that is the Christian way. I would suddenly remember one of the better signs — gray-hairs in wheelchairs posting “Warning, sir: Do not piss off old people.” Or “It does not say ‘RSVP’ on the Statue of Liberty.” Or “You KNOW it’s bad when a straight white male makes a sign.” Or the greatest of all: “Honk if you’ve never drunk-texted war plans.”
There will be millions more at the upcoming days of nonviolent protest, and this time specifically six more, the friends who don’t want a repeat of my wrinkly gimlet state-trooper glare. More and more MAGAs are beginning to understand that they have been screwed by the man they voted for. All the reliable polls show that Trump’s approval ratings are underwater, dropping significantly since January. I am a college dropout and do not understand complicated political science theories, but I don’t think many of the 17 million people projected to lose their health insurance soon will be quite as enthusiastic about the president as they might have been. He doesn’t wear well.
I will celebrate these terrible polls on the Fourth. That will be me with the gluten-free garlic fries and the sugar-free rainbow snow cone. (I live in Northern California.)
How many of the 77 million people who voted for Trump were thrilled that he bombed Iran, especially in light of most intelligence data showing that it slowed down Iran’s nuclear efforts only by months instead of years? What happened to “America First,” on his promise to stay out of other countries’ wars? He said! But he could not resist the temptation to drop a bunker-buster bomb. It was yuge, like the greatest sex ever, bigger than anything, even Vladimir Putin.
How proud were those 77 million when they saw clips of his failed military parade — up to $45 million of taxpayer money, for endlessly rebroadcast snippets of that one proud little Boaty McBoatface tank?
This Friday, my friends and I will celebrate the land that embraces political marches and rallies, the ones so far and those still to come. This is “We the people,” and that is the ultimate and most profound aspect of America. We are going to keep showing up and talking about what needs to be done and what is possible right now. We give some money, if we can, to food banks, to a congressional candidate in a swing district, an immigrant rights organization, the ACLU and Project Hope. We steady ourselves for whatever the future might hold — left foot, right foot, left foot, breathe. Yes, things are god-awful in so many ways, maybe especially the dismantling of USAID, but we can’t go limp. This is what they want. I remember George Carlin as saying, “There are nights when the wolves are silent and only the moon howls.” That night is now. We are the moon shining in the dark. We have begun to howl as one, as this new thing is getting itself born. I’ll see you on the Fourth. I’ll be smiling, overeating and celebrating this great land, the home of the brave.
From Facebook
[On John's Facebook post, the above black space is a reeI. I don't know how to embed here the reel from John's Facebook post. To see the reel copy and paste your browser the link https://www.facebook.com/reel/2804069119782253. It is Margaret Hoover's Firing Line, which contains the text.]
"We're living through the end of the post-World War II consensus, in politics, in media, in culture and everything else, where you had a society that was really sort of pushed toward the center in every conceivable way," says Politico's Jonathan Martin.
"And we're back to a 19th century model that's much more fragmented."
My comment posted on John's post
BLOGGINGEAGLE1.BLOGSPOT.COM
Eagles Mere talks about Donald Trump
