I haven't felt this patriotically good about America for a very long time. The last three weeks have changed everything that was dark into the promise of goodness and light...freedom, not tyranny. Now we must redouble our efforts to get a Democratic turnout in numbers so overwhelming that no Republican 2020 election denying officials can dispute the results. As Michelle Obama said, we must Do Something!
Everything about the DNC convention these last four days has been thrilling and uplifting. There were moments of greatness in speeches and of emotion, as when Gus Walz, weeping with pride (and because he's a neurodivergent person), called out, "That's my dad!" I DVRd every day and will save the recordings.
Bases loaded tie game home run Tom, I particularly liked your closing. I may have to watch the roll call, I had no intention of watching it, I’ve been thrilled with the speeches. I gave up on trying to take notes on them, every sentence was worth a note, sometimes my mind would wander tripped up by something they said, so I just rewound a bit to where I was fully attentive. Wow, I listened closely to people I had never paid much attention too, and did I ever learn something, the depth of love for our nation is truly inspiring. The joy is going to carry us through the election and beyond, I think we have participated in and witnessed the birth of a world changing event. If we can unite this nation as patriots the world will want to emulate us, people will demand it of their leaders. As Steve Kerr suggested, if we can unite 333 million of us we will become the most powerful nation in history, with the power to do unlimited good for all mankind. People will be thanking us for generations if we pull this off, and I believe we can. I’m now starting to regret my soon to be 78 years, what’s about to happen has the potential to be as wonderful as maned flight was a little more than a hundred years ago, and then we put men on the moon. On that happy note good night all 🙏
I’ve been feeling much the same, Dick, and I love how you noticed the speakers’ depth of love for our nation. I felt that too and it’s made me so proud.
The same for me. A new world in politics. I’m now going to watch the rollcall. Kamala’s voice, smile, energy and vision are what we need. The times they are a changin’.
Do watch it if you haven’t already. The release of all that tension from 2016 forward is infectious. Even if the format is every bit as cheesy as you thought it would be.
it's precisely that love which made the conventions so different. the other guys don't really like it here.
of course, that's exactly what they say about US. well, fuck it. we're rubber, they're glue. as in that factory to which we used to say old horses were supposed to go.
I was right there with you Tom, for all the same reasons. I lived through that same piece of history and only thought the election would be handed to Trump. Was Jill Biden listening to her young students and was hip to an energy that us old farts were missing? Did she prevail upon Joe to let the young ones take over?
As I mentioned yesterday, this has been an exillarating experience watching the youthful energy at the convention . The list list of WOWs is to long to put down. It was great, though, to see Leon Panetta looking so robust and sounding so clear.
Yes Ransom , Leon was robust, clear, determined the kind of focus that comes from many battles, many battles that have been won over a lifetime. We will win this one ... win this all together .. win for all us.
There is a way of talking/writing about America that I particularly enjoy. We saw many examples of it throughout the four days of the DNC. I don't want to try to characterize it at this moment, but I'm confident everybody here recognized it during the DNC. In stark contrast to the Democrats, the people who have mis-appropriated and diminished the Republican brand do not know how to talk about America the way the Democrats do. I enjoyed the American love-fest so much this week that I'm afraid I'm going to miss it in the days ahead. I hope the Democrats don't fall back into talking too much about the failed Republican Party. I want to hear about how we are going to work together to help lift up our fellow Americans, as well as those who aspire to become Americans. I don't want to hear from the so-called "Republicans" what they fail to say out loud, that having empathy for our fellow Americans is far too expensive and we can't afford to invest in their happiness and well-being. Maybe we should refer to them as the "Scrooge" Party. Anyway, all of the words and good vibes coming out of the DNC, even including the stories about gun-horror, were good medicine.
A long time ago I read an author's column--it may have been written by Molly Ivins, but I can't remember for sure--but it was a very interesting (albeit simplified) take on the difference in the way Republicans speak about patriotism and the way Democrats speak about patriotism.
It went something like this: Republicans love & speak of their country in the same way a two-year-old loves their Mommy. Mommy knows all and is always perfect. If someone speaks badly of Mommy, why then, that someone is Bad and needs to be punished.
Democrats love and speak of their country as loving adults speak of and to their beloved partners. We know our country isn't perfect (no human construct is perfect); but we also know our country has great promise and we want to help and support our country's efforts to be it's best self, to achieve it's wonderful promise. Democrats are Adults. Serious people.
Repub blather is all about bullying. If you don’t do it my way, I’ll get you back or leave you behind. I haven’t even gotten a whiff of love from anything Repub for decades.
It may be that the two-year-olds are also afraid of Mommy???? I believe Republicans have been warped and twisted by Nixon, by Reagan, by Gingrich, by the MAGA Congresscritters, the Bushes and Trump....how could any Republican get a whiff of love from those who have no love in them?
What could you expect from a man who divorced his wife on her deathbed and later married a woman named CA-LIS-TA, which sounds very much like the sound I would expect a snake to make? A newt and a snake. Hum. Now there's an image for you. I'll just let that one hang out there. You all can fill in the ending.
Watched it happen, every Repub worse than the last one. My b-I-l and I argued about Bob Dole once. He was all in for him. I thought he had been tainted by Newt and the tricksters. When W was foisted on us, he changed his mind and we both thought repubs had sunk to the bottom. And he had put out Hoover signs with his mother when he was a toddler.
They are too busy plotting and snarling and suspecting us lessers of trying to chip away at their pie. Hogs don’t share, the thought makes them constantly pissed…
In "Like a Rolling Stone" Bob Dylan wrote "When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose..." The rich people have a lot to lose, so perhaps they never rest easy, worrying about the vast numbers of employees who [adding: who have little to lose, who] wish they could get their money [adding: which was siphoned off by the oligarchs in the form of too little paychecks for high-value labor] back.
And that reminds me that we were hearing that many self-inflicted life-ending acts have been due to "despair". I think that a significant portion of illicit drug use is a consequence of despair. Lifestyles of the rich and famous, while somebody near me is getting evicted. I think there is more than a little bit of psychopath at the heart of our capitalist economy. Too many don't care about contemporary people, they don't care about the natural world, and they certainly don't care about the long-term future.
T L, your story reminds me of Colin Kaepernick (born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) who "took a knee" during the National Anthem at their football games, to protest racial injustice and police brutality. I thought at the time, and I still believe, that the people who were upset or offended are the same people who think that our America was perfect from the beginning. Colin Kaepernick was pointing toward some unfinished business that we as a nation are still working on.
I had never heard or read that before - but boy, it is true.
The Repubs horror if someone suggests this country is NOT perfect or exceptional in every way! The same kind of horror when the idea of educating our kids in ALL of this country's history. The book banning is only one of their prescriptions to "fix" our history!
There seems to be a parallel between thinking our country was perfect when it was created, and thinking our world was perfect when it was created (according to the story in Genesis). In both cases, an evolving nation and an evolving universe are foreign concepts to the conservative mindset.
There are many counterfactuals: at the inception of our nation only white men who owned very large estates were allowed to vote, and it took more than a century to achieve a universal franchise. And the fossil record tells us that Earth is much older than the Abrahamic religions would have us believe.
Another dangerous idea that flows from the religious right is that the God described in the Bible intervenes in the physical world. The consequence for people who hold that belief is that they relinquish their moral agency. They throw up their hands, saying there is nothing we can do about climate change because it's in God's hands. (I heard that from a person with whom I grew up from first grade). One alternative to that notion is that all moral agency resides within human beings, and so it is our responsibility to work together toward a more perfect union, and a more perfect world.
The Scrooge party has been no help at all in taking on the existential problems we face as moral, ethical, empathetic Americans.
I agree. Granted its been a long time since Sunday School (not a church-goer anymore) but the God I was taught about seemed to me felt that it was our responsibility to work things out - not sit & wait for him to do it!
A recurring theme that often resurfaces in (what's left of) my mind is "psychopath!" No empathy, no sympathy. If there is any regard for "lesser mortals" it seems that it must be something like "How can I use them?"
No humanity either. Although “lessers” make good servants, especially women and others. But men have their uses too, as Hitler found uses for the strong. And don’t forget how the humanity has been squeezed out of religion so that the “prosperity gospel” is in line with the capitalist zeitgeist.
I'm with you about not wanting to hear about The Republicans anymore. There is something new in the air. Something new is growing out of all the chaos and spleen of the last decade. We're not going back. No mud, no lotus.
I have been learning Portuguese since last October for a trip to Brazil this October. Originally I was a little more casual about it but decided I needed to step up my game early this year. As I watched Joe Biden's poll numbers stubbornly not move, I was beginning to think that I would have to leave the country as well.
What has happened in the last 31 days or so, to use the old cliché, would have been a script rejected by any producer for being so far-fetched. But wow, we got Democrats in super-array, thanks to Kamala Harris's legwork to shore up support across 50 states (her famous 10 hours or so on the phone after Joe Biden announced that he was not running) and then her sliding into the top slot like she belonged there, THEN picked a running mate out of Central Casting for "affable, lovable, but very effective Midwestern politician." You couldn't have written this. The whole thing is crazy but incredible.
We still have to do the work, but I'm not thinking I'll have to emigrate next year.
Right there with you, Andrew..... We are going to the UK next month for a couple of weeks and the way things were going a month ago, the Bride wasn't sure we would be coming back except to get the dogs and tell the kids goodbye..... Now it looks as though we should put on another pot of coffee..... All in all, a terrible screenplay, but a wonderful turn of events.
This Convention spotlighted the depth of the Democrats "bench"...the next generation of smart, oratorically gifted, experienced and emotionally mature leaders--women and men-- who are grounded in strong families and communities! (A sense of the "normal" has been rare in what has been our contagiously dysfunctional politics up til now.)
It is as if someone( Biden?) opened a big wide door and they all came pouring out.
I think Biden did open that door. I'm 73 years old and remember how proud I was of our country before Kennedy was assassinated. I remember the love of country, singing No Man is an Island at our sixth-grade graduation. Biden remembered that too and he passed it on to young people who may never have heard it. And then he passed the torch to someone he knew was more than ready and capable to run with it. Now it is our job to run with her all the way to the finish line.
Another rousing pep talk, TC. Kamala and Tim are indeed dynamic conduits for the promotion of Abe Lincoln’s “better angels of our natures” and their intentions are no doubt sincere, a heartening change from the grim and vile prognostications of the Republican fascists delivered by El Weirdo. Now it’s up to us to see that the ideal aspirations of democracy so skillfully and passionately encouraged by the DNC speakers are translated into actual policies, which means voting in mass and voting for democrats up and down the ticket, as you and Robert Hubbell have frequently advised.
Adam Kinzinger got it right — the age-old enemy we are facing again is tyranny, the radical evil that arises when a corrupt leader ignores the rule of law and like Trump, uses the structures of government to further his own despotic interests rather the aspirations of the collective citizenry. We can do this, people. Now that we have heard Team Harris/Walz embrace the blessings of democracy and broadcast the clarion call of liberty with such direct and eloquent urgency, it is up to us, we, the demos, to respond by granting them a landslide victory on election day!
as queasy as nationalist exultations usually make me, I went with it all last night. all of it.
the whole event was so unbelievably well-planned. I also decided to ditch the roll call, but after the second state did its thing, I paused "Andrei Rublev" on Criterion and went with it. the musical selections for each state were even perfect.
if a Martian was given some kind of A/B test with five minutes of randomly chosen stuff from both conventions, it's pretty easy to figure out what convention that Martian would prefer. I am assuming, of course, that Martians are more or less nice folks.
seriously (and I WAS being serious just above, just not conventionally so), I am pumped.
the other side is flailing, and the more they flail, the meaner they're gonna get. this is not helped by (just for example) the two big newspapers we tend to abuse here, usually for excellent reasons. was it yesterday that the NYT devoted one whole PAGE to "investigating" JD ("PR Guy") Vance's claims about Walz's "stolen valor?" if not, it was the day before (these have been very long days). I mean, like, what the actual fuck?
using Occam's very reliable Razor, I've come to the simple truth about Vance. he's a grifter and a whore. nothing more complicated than that. I have my theories about the more intimate aspects of his life, but they're only relevant insofar as they might or might not make him even more of a hypocrite than he already is. fucking scumbag.
I used to do this muscle testing demonstration about "positive attitudes" with my students. if you think about negative shit, the muscle goes weak; if you smile and say "yes," the muscle is strong. that previous paragraph actually made me feel drained when I typed it. this paragraph is already much better...
Watching the Democratic National Convention on C-Span has given me hope again, and has shown me the America I want us to be -all so different on the surface, and all wanting to work for the American we know we can be.
I thought Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech was electrifying.
I was right there with you in"Act As If".I could not fathom switching horses in mid-stream with so little time available. I was all-in with Joe but felt the discourse within the Dem party. What Joe Biden pulled off was nothing short of a miracle. That Sunday, July 21, 2024, I was in the depths of despair in the afternoon only to have climbed to the giddy mountaintop by that evening.Biden has cemented his role in preserving our democracy and for that, I will be forever grateful.
I started reading Kessler's list then remembered an old definition of a cynic: "A cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." So I bailed. (Just looked up the quote: I thought it was Oscar Wilde and the infallible <g> internet seems to agree: it's from _Lady Windemere's Fan_.)
Tom this was a GREAT post. New energy is pouring out in the party as the next generation takes the torch of Liberty and steps up the pace. THANKS for this post. You capture it for me at 77!
I haven't felt this patriotically good about America for a very long time. The last three weeks have changed everything that was dark into the promise of goodness and light...freedom, not tyranny. Now we must redouble our efforts to get a Democratic turnout in numbers so overwhelming that no Republican 2020 election denying officials can dispute the results. As Michelle Obama said, we must Do Something!
Everything about the DNC convention these last four days has been thrilling and uplifting. There were moments of greatness in speeches and of emotion, as when Gus Walz, weeping with pride (and because he's a neurodivergent person), called out, "That's my dad!" I DVRd every day and will save the recordings.
Bases loaded tie game home run Tom, I particularly liked your closing. I may have to watch the roll call, I had no intention of watching it, I’ve been thrilled with the speeches. I gave up on trying to take notes on them, every sentence was worth a note, sometimes my mind would wander tripped up by something they said, so I just rewound a bit to where I was fully attentive. Wow, I listened closely to people I had never paid much attention too, and did I ever learn something, the depth of love for our nation is truly inspiring. The joy is going to carry us through the election and beyond, I think we have participated in and witnessed the birth of a world changing event. If we can unite this nation as patriots the world will want to emulate us, people will demand it of their leaders. As Steve Kerr suggested, if we can unite 333 million of us we will become the most powerful nation in history, with the power to do unlimited good for all mankind. People will be thanking us for generations if we pull this off, and I believe we can. I’m now starting to regret my soon to be 78 years, what’s about to happen has the potential to be as wonderful as maned flight was a little more than a hundred years ago, and then we put men on the moon. On that happy note good night all 🙏
I’ve been feeling much the same, Dick, and I love how you noticed the speakers’ depth of love for our nation. I felt that too and it’s made me so proud.
Time to wear our patriotism and goals for America on our sleeve and from our mouths with unabashed pride of ownership in freedom for all.
An attack on one freedom becomes an attack on all freedoms if we avoided the seriousness of the side wishing and acting to deny that freedom.
Protecting every freedom is the fight for all of us.
By all means go and watch the roll call (words I never thought I would say). It's a hoot! Then look for a comparison with the GOP'S for a laugh.
Jessica Craven gave a link to it. I watched the whole thing and was so glad I did. I might even go back and watch it again!
The same for me. A new world in politics. I’m now going to watch the rollcall. Kamala’s voice, smile, energy and vision are what we need. The times they are a changin’.
Eleanor Roosevelt wrote a book, It's Up to the Women. Well, it is indeed, but we need everyone to stand up now. Everyone.
Do watch it if you haven’t already. The release of all that tension from 2016 forward is infectious. Even if the format is every bit as cheesy as you thought it would be.
Amen, Brother, Amen!!
it's precisely that love which made the conventions so different. the other guys don't really like it here.
of course, that's exactly what they say about US. well, fuck it. we're rubber, they're glue. as in that factory to which we used to say old horses were supposed to go.
and it's THEIR choice.
I was right there with you Tom, for all the same reasons. I lived through that same piece of history and only thought the election would be handed to Trump. Was Jill Biden listening to her young students and was hip to an energy that us old farts were missing? Did she prevail upon Joe to let the young ones take over?
As I mentioned yesterday, this has been an exillarating experience watching the youthful energy at the convention . The list list of WOWs is to long to put down. It was great, though, to see Leon Panetta looking so robust and sounding so clear.
Time for bed. We gots work to do.
Yes Ransom , Leon was robust, clear, determined the kind of focus that comes from many battles, many battles that have been won over a lifetime. We will win this one ... win this all together .. win for all us.
Loved Leon Panetta’s speech!
There is a way of talking/writing about America that I particularly enjoy. We saw many examples of it throughout the four days of the DNC. I don't want to try to characterize it at this moment, but I'm confident everybody here recognized it during the DNC. In stark contrast to the Democrats, the people who have mis-appropriated and diminished the Republican brand do not know how to talk about America the way the Democrats do. I enjoyed the American love-fest so much this week that I'm afraid I'm going to miss it in the days ahead. I hope the Democrats don't fall back into talking too much about the failed Republican Party. I want to hear about how we are going to work together to help lift up our fellow Americans, as well as those who aspire to become Americans. I don't want to hear from the so-called "Republicans" what they fail to say out loud, that having empathy for our fellow Americans is far too expensive and we can't afford to invest in their happiness and well-being. Maybe we should refer to them as the "Scrooge" Party. Anyway, all of the words and good vibes coming out of the DNC, even including the stories about gun-horror, were good medicine.
A long time ago I read an author's column--it may have been written by Molly Ivins, but I can't remember for sure--but it was a very interesting (albeit simplified) take on the difference in the way Republicans speak about patriotism and the way Democrats speak about patriotism.
It went something like this: Republicans love & speak of their country in the same way a two-year-old loves their Mommy. Mommy knows all and is always perfect. If someone speaks badly of Mommy, why then, that someone is Bad and needs to be punished.
Democrats love and speak of their country as loving adults speak of and to their beloved partners. We know our country isn't perfect (no human construct is perfect); but we also know our country has great promise and we want to help and support our country's efforts to be it's best self, to achieve it's wonderful promise. Democrats are Adults. Serious people.
Repub blather is all about bullying. If you don’t do it my way, I’ll get you back or leave you behind. I haven’t even gotten a whiff of love from anything Repub for decades.
It may be that the two-year-olds are also afraid of Mommy???? I believe Republicans have been warped and twisted by Nixon, by Reagan, by Gingrich, by the MAGA Congresscritters, the Bushes and Trump....how could any Republican get a whiff of love from those who have no love in them?
Gingrich leaves an evil stench on the Republican party that cannot be eradicated.
What could you expect from a man who divorced his wife on her deathbed and later married a woman named CA-LIS-TA, which sounds very much like the sound I would expect a snake to make? A newt and a snake. Hum. Now there's an image for you. I'll just let that one hang out there. You all can fill in the ending.
Watched it happen, every Repub worse than the last one. My b-I-l and I argued about Bob Dole once. He was all in for him. I thought he had been tainted by Newt and the tricksters. When W was foisted on us, he changed his mind and we both thought repubs had sunk to the bottom. And he had put out Hoover signs with his mother when he was a toddler.
Good question.
And none of the Republicans seem to smile. They have all this wealth but they never seem to smile.
They are too busy plotting and snarling and suspecting us lessers of trying to chip away at their pie. Hogs don’t share, the thought makes them constantly pissed…
In "Like a Rolling Stone" Bob Dylan wrote "When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose..." The rich people have a lot to lose, so perhaps they never rest easy, worrying about the vast numbers of employees who [adding: who have little to lose, who] wish they could get their money [adding: which was siphoned off by the oligarchs in the form of too little paychecks for high-value labor] back.
Reminds me… Kris Kristopherson said that when his mother disowned him, he had nothing left to lose. Sorry, off topic but…
And that reminds me that we were hearing that many self-inflicted life-ending acts have been due to "despair". I think that a significant portion of illicit drug use is a consequence of despair. Lifestyles of the rich and famous, while somebody near me is getting evicted. I think there is more than a little bit of psychopath at the heart of our capitalist economy. Too many don't care about contemporary people, they don't care about the natural world, and they certainly don't care about the long-term future.
Yes Susan
I’ve been noticing that particularly this year And, they now look grim.
T L, your story reminds me of Colin Kaepernick (born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin) who "took a knee" during the National Anthem at their football games, to protest racial injustice and police brutality. I thought at the time, and I still believe, that the people who were upset or offended are the same people who think that our America was perfect from the beginning. Colin Kaepernick was pointing toward some unfinished business that we as a nation are still working on.
I had never heard or read that before - but boy, it is true.
The Repubs horror if someone suggests this country is NOT perfect or exceptional in every way! The same kind of horror when the idea of educating our kids in ALL of this country's history. The book banning is only one of their prescriptions to "fix" our history!
Maggie, you reminded me of an idea.
There seems to be a parallel between thinking our country was perfect when it was created, and thinking our world was perfect when it was created (according to the story in Genesis). In both cases, an evolving nation and an evolving universe are foreign concepts to the conservative mindset.
There are many counterfactuals: at the inception of our nation only white men who owned very large estates were allowed to vote, and it took more than a century to achieve a universal franchise. And the fossil record tells us that Earth is much older than the Abrahamic religions would have us believe.
Another dangerous idea that flows from the religious right is that the God described in the Bible intervenes in the physical world. The consequence for people who hold that belief is that they relinquish their moral agency. They throw up their hands, saying there is nothing we can do about climate change because it's in God's hands. (I heard that from a person with whom I grew up from first grade). One alternative to that notion is that all moral agency resides within human beings, and so it is our responsibility to work together toward a more perfect union, and a more perfect world.
The Scrooge party has been no help at all in taking on the existential problems we face as moral, ethical, empathetic Americans.
I agree. Granted its been a long time since Sunday School (not a church-goer anymore) but the God I was taught about seemed to me felt that it was our responsibility to work things out - not sit & wait for him to do it!
Love the Scrooge Party, but they are the Fat Cat Party for some
A recurring theme that often resurfaces in (what's left of) my mind is "psychopath!" No empathy, no sympathy. If there is any regard for "lesser mortals" it seems that it must be something like "How can I use them?"
No humanity either. Although “lessers” make good servants, especially women and others. But men have their uses too, as Hitler found uses for the strong. And don’t forget how the humanity has been squeezed out of religion so that the “prosperity gospel” is in line with the capitalist zeitgeist.
You put that beautifully. Thank you.
I'm with you about not wanting to hear about The Republicans anymore. There is something new in the air. Something new is growing out of all the chaos and spleen of the last decade. We're not going back. No mud, no lotus.
Scrooge Party! I love it!
Only in America ❤️🇺🇸💙
I have been learning Portuguese since last October for a trip to Brazil this October. Originally I was a little more casual about it but decided I needed to step up my game early this year. As I watched Joe Biden's poll numbers stubbornly not move, I was beginning to think that I would have to leave the country as well.
What has happened in the last 31 days or so, to use the old cliché, would have been a script rejected by any producer for being so far-fetched. But wow, we got Democrats in super-array, thanks to Kamala Harris's legwork to shore up support across 50 states (her famous 10 hours or so on the phone after Joe Biden announced that he was not running) and then her sliding into the top slot like she belonged there, THEN picked a running mate out of Central Casting for "affable, lovable, but very effective Midwestern politician." You couldn't have written this. The whole thing is crazy but incredible.
We still have to do the work, but I'm not thinking I'll have to emigrate next year.
Right there with you, Andrew..... We are going to the UK next month for a couple of weeks and the way things were going a month ago, the Bride wasn't sure we would be coming back except to get the dogs and tell the kids goodbye..... Now it looks as though we should put on another pot of coffee..... All in all, a terrible screenplay, but a wonderful turn of events.
This Convention spotlighted the depth of the Democrats "bench"...the next generation of smart, oratorically gifted, experienced and emotionally mature leaders--women and men-- who are grounded in strong families and communities! (A sense of the "normal" has been rare in what has been our contagiously dysfunctional politics up til now.)
It is as if someone( Biden?) opened a big wide door and they all came pouring out.
He did promise to be "a bridge to the next generation" back in 2020.
I think Biden did open that door. I'm 73 years old and remember how proud I was of our country before Kennedy was assassinated. I remember the love of country, singing No Man is an Island at our sixth-grade graduation. Biden remembered that too and he passed it on to young people who may never have heard it. And then he passed the torch to someone he knew was more than ready and capable to run with it. Now it is our job to run with her all the way to the finish line.
Exactly. I thought exactly that more than once last night.
Another rousing pep talk, TC. Kamala and Tim are indeed dynamic conduits for the promotion of Abe Lincoln’s “better angels of our natures” and their intentions are no doubt sincere, a heartening change from the grim and vile prognostications of the Republican fascists delivered by El Weirdo. Now it’s up to us to see that the ideal aspirations of democracy so skillfully and passionately encouraged by the DNC speakers are translated into actual policies, which means voting in mass and voting for democrats up and down the ticket, as you and Robert Hubbell have frequently advised.
Adam Kinzinger got it right — the age-old enemy we are facing again is tyranny, the radical evil that arises when a corrupt leader ignores the rule of law and like Trump, uses the structures of government to further his own despotic interests rather the aspirations of the collective citizenry. We can do this, people. Now that we have heard Team Harris/Walz embrace the blessings of democracy and broadcast the clarion call of liberty with such direct and eloquent urgency, it is up to us, we, the demos, to respond by granting them a landslide victory on election day!
Amen. Preach on …..
Fantastic post, Tom, inspirational. Thank you.
I'm with alla youse.
as queasy as nationalist exultations usually make me, I went with it all last night. all of it.
the whole event was so unbelievably well-planned. I also decided to ditch the roll call, but after the second state did its thing, I paused "Andrei Rublev" on Criterion and went with it. the musical selections for each state were even perfect.
if a Martian was given some kind of A/B test with five minutes of randomly chosen stuff from both conventions, it's pretty easy to figure out what convention that Martian would prefer. I am assuming, of course, that Martians are more or less nice folks.
seriously (and I WAS being serious just above, just not conventionally so), I am pumped.
the other side is flailing, and the more they flail, the meaner they're gonna get. this is not helped by (just for example) the two big newspapers we tend to abuse here, usually for excellent reasons. was it yesterday that the NYT devoted one whole PAGE to "investigating" JD ("PR Guy") Vance's claims about Walz's "stolen valor?" if not, it was the day before (these have been very long days). I mean, like, what the actual fuck?
using Occam's very reliable Razor, I've come to the simple truth about Vance. he's a grifter and a whore. nothing more complicated than that. I have my theories about the more intimate aspects of his life, but they're only relevant insofar as they might or might not make him even more of a hypocrite than he already is. fucking scumbag.
I used to do this muscle testing demonstration about "positive attitudes" with my students. if you think about negative shit, the muscle goes weak; if you smile and say "yes," the muscle is strong. that previous paragraph actually made me feel drained when I typed it. this paragraph is already much better...
“The privilege and pride of being an American.” ❤️🤍💙
Gabby Giffords was so inspiring to me in all she has overcome.No excuses! GOTV everyone. Please do whatever is in your comfort zone…
Reclaiming the flag, freedom and democracy!
We’re flying our flag( appropriately right side up😉) along with our very lonely Harris/Walz sign. Please join us !
🇺🇸🪧
Reclaiming the flag YES!
Watching the Democratic National Convention on C-Span has given me hope again, and has shown me the America I want us to be -all so different on the surface, and all wanting to work for the American we know we can be.
I thought Kamala Harris’s acceptance speech was electrifying.
Yes, we can, and we will!
Just…WOW!
I was right there with you in"Act As If".I could not fathom switching horses in mid-stream with so little time available. I was all-in with Joe but felt the discourse within the Dem party. What Joe Biden pulled off was nothing short of a miracle. That Sunday, July 21, 2024, I was in the depths of despair in the afternoon only to have climbed to the giddy mountaintop by that evening.Biden has cemented his role in preserving our democracy and for that, I will be forever grateful.
just for the record, vis-a-vis the fact-checking in the WaPo...it's the same fucking deal. Glenn Kessler needs to have his ass fired.
I started reading Kessler's list then remembered an old definition of a cynic: "A cynic is one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing." So I bailed. (Just looked up the quote: I thought it was Oscar Wilde and the infallible <g> internet seems to agree: it's from _Lady Windemere's Fan_.)
Tom this was a GREAT post. New energy is pouring out in the party as the next generation takes the torch of Liberty and steps up the pace. THANKS for this post. You capture it for me at 77!