Opposition yes. Opposition takes courage and someone who has your back. Now more than anytime in our history we need real opposition. As you said Tom, opposition not arms. Now is the time for Cory Booker, Chris McCarthy, Richard Blumethal, Alex Padilla, Adam Schiff and others of the young Turks to stand up to he old guard. Forget about being 'politically correct' or polite. No need for fisticuffs but some yelling and screaming would be welcome. When they try to push through their harmful legislation supporting a dictatorship shout them down. File ethics reports against all who are taking bribes, support trump instead of the Constitution. Same in the House of Representatives, I can trust my Congressman to oppose, but he is a physician raised on compassion and caring. You can't show compassion to those who have neither conscience nor reverence for the Constitution.
More than anything else, do not let the trumpscum lot, get away with doing away with the mid-term elections. File lawsuits, refuse money from the billionaire crowd. Reach out to your constituents not for money but for reassurance that come what may you've got our backs and you'll go down kicking and screaming all the way.
Alex Padilla? Funny indeed. I voted for this Dumbo. The unlit bulb in the senate chandelier. Disappointing is not even coming close to what I feel about this piece of work.
Yes, flood the zone, as they are wont to say. Any figurative grenades they throw must be lobbed back at them immediately. Consensus with hyenas is impossible, so save the peace talks for after they've had enough. I am going after the magas here at the local level so they will be consumed with defending themselves from criticism and unavailable to keep carrying their maga banners.
We have much to learn from the Opposition tactics in South Korea. Their have been immediate resignations by the Defense Minister Chief of Staff & "Top Aides"
There were scores of South Korean people killed by the "Marshall" law (not) fascists. Apparently the Opposition has already filed a "Motion" to impeach Yoon Suk, Of course, the ruling party will oppose Impeachment but, I expect events come to head within in 10 days.
We must take a hard detailed look at the U.S. "Insurrection Act" among many, many other tasks.
Being subversive can be a virtue. I'll be asking "annoying and troubling questions" of every maga on the city council, the county commission, and the school board meetings, along with making calls to DC reps and sending postcards with heartfelt messages. I laid in a large supply of stamps. I'm no longer young with kids, so what do I have to lose?
Here's the thing about postcards: If they are handwritten and unusual on one side several people who handle the mail within a sorting and forwarding operation, such as they had within the large operation in which I worked, the handlers as well as the recipient may have a look. Though influence will be far less than skywriting, say, at least the message is seen.
Here is something I thought about during the campaign. I was reflecting on the four years we were subjected to the Trump presidency, 2017-2021 and was trying to see if there was anything he did specifically that affected my life directly, positively or negatively, and I, a white male, could not think of anything. Now, I know better, and know well that Trump policies and inattention made life very hard for a lot of other constituencies, but I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that too many didn't see anything past the ends of their noses, and would vote accordingly. I voted for others when I voted for Harris more than I voted for myself.
I've noticed over the years that too many want to believe stories, not facts. It's why Rush Limbaugh and others like him became so popular with a certain subset of our population. Nowadays the big storyteller is Joe Rogan, who is doing as much damage, in his way, as Rush did in his years on the air. Can we use that to our advantage? We've been countering with facts only for decades to no avail--can we weave these facts into stories that people will understand, so that we can make our points? Can we use the power of story to push back against the bad storytellers? I don't know that i have a solution right now, but I think the key is there.
That's longer term. My short term answer: get in their way. Do everything possible to gum up the works. Remember that President Biden appointed a ton of judges in his term, and we have other more liberal judges sitting on courts now--we can oppose the administration there. Play Trump's game: rope-a-dope in the courts. Becoming a physical barrier is a bigger thing, but that's on my mind too.
Thank you. Nearly all the people who were surprised or outright shocked by Trump 45 were white, most of them were men, and the ones who weren't were straight. There's a reason that 92% of Black women voted for Harris this time, and it's not only or even primarily because she's a woman of color: IIRC, 94% voted for Biden-Harris in 2020, and 98% voted for Clinton-Kaine in 2016.
I subscribe to Marc Elias/DD and think non-subscribers can read some of his posts on his DD w-site.This is from his w-site (I also received as an email) that explains his feelings about Substack.
“Along the way it added a daily newsletter and most recently premium content. What it has not added are outside investors. It owes nothing to corporate interests or external financial backers. It is not tax-exempt and thus seeks no favor from the government. Though more expensive, it hosts its own website so that it can never be shut down by a platform like Substack.”
I'm a "premium subscriber" to Marc Elias. He's worth more than I pay. I dropped my WaPo and Amazon subscriptions, freeing up some $$. Elias' emails are superb.
The really scary thing is that it will only take one or two rabble rousers--or even embedded MAGATS, to throw something during a peaceful protest, and it will end up a rebellion and danger to the country and Kent State, here we come.
Possibly, but I wouldn't bet on it. Back in the day of anti-Vietnam War marches and protests, the ones we had to watch out for were class-privileged lefty white men. They'd sometimes try to provoke police officers into beating up on peaceful protesters, in the belief that this would "radicalize" the latter.
Hm. In Richmond, VA. the majority of those arrested were right wing instigators, when protests over statues were at their height. Your comparison does align with the Palestinian protests, I think.
We need to do both. The post-mortem "Democrats in disarray" bullshit has begun and it will continue. We need to organize, in addition to opposition and resistance, and right now, we don't have a Howard Dean "50-state strategy" up and running.
This was never about the price of eggs and gas. (A friend just posted on Facebook a picture of $2.54 at Sam's Club for gas) and the price of eggs has fallen since the spring.
Because, in truth, it was never about gas or eggs or pay. It was about revenge and 'owning the libs.' It was also ensuring that Obama (at least for now) was an anomaly. MAGA was the outgrowth of the Tea Fleas, the guys who kicked a disabled person after another Bagger threw him out of his chair, showed up at an Obama town hall with a gun and claimed he wasn't born here. Drumpf was the one behind that one, or the loudest. So here we are, the Orange Grover Cleveland and his tariffs and his de-portation camps and retribution presidency. We're in trouble, more than Nixon or even Ronnie who called his wife mommy could have ever dreamed up.
Hitler had competent, he also had ignorant toadies. Both useful as he and Goebbels transformed the country with hate and greed.
I will post (on bsky) two pages from Adventurers of A Bystander” by Peter Drucker that made my blood run cold when I read them years ago. They speak to what you wrote and warn as I have read nowhere else…
(P.S. If you have written about your experiences with COINTELPRO, I must have missed it. Can you point me in the direction of a -- or more -- previous column/s? Or write about it here? Thanks.)
This is one of the ways in which Substack could improve. On your home page they have things you are subscribed to, on an author's feed they have past articles with more popular ones foremost. It would increase functionality if they would add a way to access a list of past article - an index or possibly just a list of titles (although some, like HCR, don't have many or any clues in the title). It wouldn't hurt if they allowed the choice by the author of having a menu option of rearranging the list by topic. It wouldn't be hard, if they option was there, to do so going forward at least. Many of these articles represent quite a bit of effort on the part of the authors and many are well worth revising or using as a part of a research effort on a topic one wants to learn more about.
there is a way through the Substack home page or support page or somewhere unexpected. I've made a couple of suggestions but they've been ignored. One is a way to search through your own comments to find where you made them and what the context was. The way topics recur in this world (gee, another grift???) it would help to see what you'd thought before and whether your mind had changed.
At least your own page now shows what you've liked, but comments are much more useful. In any event, you cant search the likes.
Kdsherpa, I had a lovely chat with a chatbot. Supposedly they "document" what you offer. I think that's the only flow of information inward, which is another problem! One would think they could accept suggestions and use AI to triage the TMI. We live in a very strange world. . .
That's a weird thing that happens every day. They are really stupid. It's a cheap business model to use them to support customers. I will use support by people who can read or hear me. Not AI that fits my question into an algorithm. Yes , humans use scripts, but you can at least get them to go off-script to get what you need.
We have the makings of a real democratic “community” here on Substack with your site and many others like it communicating in chorus for the common good, and you can be sure that the Trump fascists will shut this platform down pronto as soon as the “Orange Grover Cleveland” as you dubbed him, is installed in the White House. These bastards are out to hurt us, steal our benefits and make us slaves for the Christian Fascist America they envision. Trump encouraged them with his January 6 insurrection and now thanks to Merrick Garland, he’s about to unleash them on the American people like a pack of wild dogs. Mere “resistance” in the face of these vicious, racist assholes would be a joke — opposition is the only choice… The situation reminds me of something Kenneth Rexroth said that captured the guerrilla spirit of opposition that’s required: After the corporate lackeys were finished playing golf for the day, Rexroth said, his role as an iconoclast was to go around after dark and shit in the holes.
Opposition yes. Opposition takes courage and someone who has your back. Now more than anytime in our history we need real opposition. As you said Tom, opposition not arms. Now is the time for Cory Booker, Chris McCarthy, Richard Blumethal, Alex Padilla, Adam Schiff and others of the young Turks to stand up to he old guard. Forget about being 'politically correct' or polite. No need for fisticuffs but some yelling and screaming would be welcome. When they try to push through their harmful legislation supporting a dictatorship shout them down. File ethics reports against all who are taking bribes, support trump instead of the Constitution. Same in the House of Representatives, I can trust my Congressman to oppose, but he is a physician raised on compassion and caring. You can't show compassion to those who have neither conscience nor reverence for the Constitution.
More than anything else, do not let the trumpscum lot, get away with doing away with the mid-term elections. File lawsuits, refuse money from the billionaire crowd. Reach out to your constituents not for money but for reassurance that come what may you've got our backs and you'll go down kicking and screaming all the way.
Well said, Fay. We need different leadership in the Senate, that much is certain.
I’m not going to resist, I will be in the opposition.
Me too, Ally.
Alex Padilla? Funny indeed. I voted for this Dumbo. The unlit bulb in the senate chandelier. Disappointing is not even coming close to what I feel about this piece of work.
Yes, flood the zone, as they are wont to say. Any figurative grenades they throw must be lobbed back at them immediately. Consensus with hyenas is impossible, so save the peace talks for after they've had enough. I am going after the magas here at the local level so they will be consumed with defending themselves from criticism and unavailable to keep carrying their maga banners.
We have much to learn from the Opposition tactics in South Korea. Their have been immediate resignations by the Defense Minister Chief of Staff & "Top Aides"
There were scores of South Korean people killed by the "Marshall" law (not) fascists. Apparently the Opposition has already filed a "Motion" to impeach Yoon Suk, Of course, the ruling party will oppose Impeachment but, I expect events come to head within in 10 days.
We must take a hard detailed look at the U.S. "Insurrection Act" among many, many other tasks.
Stay Safe All
Community building is critical. ✅
I've been committed to rebellion for at least 45 years.
Being subversive can be a virtue. I'll be asking "annoying and troubling questions" of every maga on the city council, the county commission, and the school board meetings, along with making calls to DC reps and sending postcards with heartfelt messages. I laid in a large supply of stamps. I'm no longer young with kids, so what do I have to lose?
Go Judith. Nothing to lose, everything to gain.
Here's the thing about postcards: If they are handwritten and unusual on one side several people who handle the mail within a sorting and forwarding operation, such as they had within the large operation in which I worked, the handlers as well as the recipient may have a look. Though influence will be far less than skywriting, say, at least the message is seen.
I am impressed. Really. What a clever idea.
Been opposing every single day. Nobody noticed, just a libtard radical.
Here is something I thought about during the campaign. I was reflecting on the four years we were subjected to the Trump presidency, 2017-2021 and was trying to see if there was anything he did specifically that affected my life directly, positively or negatively, and I, a white male, could not think of anything. Now, I know better, and know well that Trump policies and inattention made life very hard for a lot of other constituencies, but I was rapidly coming to the conclusion that too many didn't see anything past the ends of their noses, and would vote accordingly. I voted for others when I voted for Harris more than I voted for myself.
I've noticed over the years that too many want to believe stories, not facts. It's why Rush Limbaugh and others like him became so popular with a certain subset of our population. Nowadays the big storyteller is Joe Rogan, who is doing as much damage, in his way, as Rush did in his years on the air. Can we use that to our advantage? We've been countering with facts only for decades to no avail--can we weave these facts into stories that people will understand, so that we can make our points? Can we use the power of story to push back against the bad storytellers? I don't know that i have a solution right now, but I think the key is there.
That's longer term. My short term answer: get in their way. Do everything possible to gum up the works. Remember that President Biden appointed a ton of judges in his term, and we have other more liberal judges sitting on courts now--we can oppose the administration there. Play Trump's game: rope-a-dope in the courts. Becoming a physical barrier is a bigger thing, but that's on my mind too.
Thank you. Nearly all the people who were surprised or outright shocked by Trump 45 were white, most of them were men, and the ones who weren't were straight. There's a reason that 92% of Black women voted for Harris this time, and it's not only or even primarily because she's a woman of color: IIRC, 94% voted for Biden-Harris in 2020, and 98% voted for Clinton-Kaine in 2016.
Opposition to and in
resistance to. Basically the
same things. You don't need
to raise fists and guns to
resist or oppose.
Mark Elias is a lawyer and
Democracy Docket is his
venue. It's a good venue for
keeping track of what's going
on in all the nations courts.
He doesn't like Substack at
all and has been open about
his dislike in his premium
newsletter. So I take that with
a tiny grain of salt. I do have
to wonder why he doesn't
allow sharing any of his DD
posts. He's on Facebook and
maybe he posts them there?
There are a lot of highly
intelligent, professional and
experienced people here on
Substack and it continues to
grow. The same is happening
on BlueSky.
I am opposing the new
regime and I will resist in
every way I possibly can, to
move around them, cause
them as much good trouble
as I can, refuse to obey in
advance, not take one effing
step back and persist!
I subscribe to Marc Elias/DD and think non-subscribers can read some of his posts on his DD w-site.This is from his w-site (I also received as an email) that explains his feelings about Substack.
“Along the way it added a daily newsletter and most recently premium content. What it has not added are outside investors. It owes nothing to corporate interests or external financial backers. It is not tax-exempt and thus seeks no favor from the government. Though more expensive, it hosts its own website so that it can never be shut down by a platform like Substack.”
Which is all good things.
We're his external financial
backers if you think about it
and of course his law practice
and DD store.
I've been a paying member of
DD for 2 years. It's worth it to
keep track of the courts and
cases. That's the job he and
his group took on and they do
a great job. Not to criticize,
IMHO, another platform
whose writers praise his work
and probably funnel new
subscribers to DD.😉
Both worth the price of admission !
What is DD?
Democracy Docket
I'm a "premium subscriber" to Marc Elias. He's worth more than I pay. I dropped my WaPo and Amazon subscriptions, freeing up some $$. Elias' emails are superb.
I didn't say they weren't.👍
The really scary thing is that it will only take one or two rabble rousers--or even embedded MAGATS, to throw something during a peaceful protest, and it will end up a rebellion and danger to the country and Kent State, here we come.
It probably will be a MAGAt.
Possibly, but I wouldn't bet on it. Back in the day of anti-Vietnam War marches and protests, the ones we had to watch out for were class-privileged lefty white men. They'd sometimes try to provoke police officers into beating up on peaceful protesters, in the belief that this would "radicalize" the latter.
Hm. In Richmond, VA. the majority of those arrested were right wing instigators, when protests over statues were at their height. Your comparison does align with the Palestinian protests, I think.
That's when you point and yell "MAGA" as though you were yelling "bomb".
We need to do both. The post-mortem "Democrats in disarray" bullshit has begun and it will continue. We need to organize, in addition to opposition and resistance, and right now, we don't have a Howard Dean "50-state strategy" up and running.
This was never about the price of eggs and gas. (A friend just posted on Facebook a picture of $2.54 at Sam's Club for gas) and the price of eggs has fallen since the spring.
Because, in truth, it was never about gas or eggs or pay. It was about revenge and 'owning the libs.' It was also ensuring that Obama (at least for now) was an anomaly. MAGA was the outgrowth of the Tea Fleas, the guys who kicked a disabled person after another Bagger threw him out of his chair, showed up at an Obama town hall with a gun and claimed he wasn't born here. Drumpf was the one behind that one, or the loudest. So here we are, the Orange Grover Cleveland and his tariffs and his de-portation camps and retribution presidency. We're in trouble, more than Nixon or even Ronnie who called his wife mommy could have ever dreamed up.
Hitler had competent, he also had ignorant toadies. Both useful as he and Goebbels transformed the country with hate and greed.
I will post (on bsky) two pages from Adventurers of A Bystander” by Peter Drucker that made my blood run cold when I read them years ago. They speak to what you wrote and warn as I have read nowhere else…
Exactly. Thank you for the reminder.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is far more correct than even she may realize. Build community in any form that echoes your heart centre.
I would love for her to have community rallies because she can draw crowds, and let the magas try to figure out what she's up to.
Thanks Tom, for saying this so well. It's a lot of what I've been thinking.
We'll have a much better idea 30 days after the inauguration.
Personally I'm braced for an overnight demise to the country as we know it, but I try not to dwell on it.
At least you and I got trained to Plan For The Worst Situation.
I can be pretty tough to find if wanna be. It's been a good run, glad I don't have kids.
Me too.
That makes it a worse scenario, my actions for years have been with them in mind, but I can’t fix this. They have been warned…
"We do not have community." AOC is so right.
(P.S. If you have written about your experiences with COINTELPRO, I must have missed it. Can you point me in the direction of a -- or more -- previous column/s? Or write about it here? Thanks.)
This is one of the ways in which Substack could improve. On your home page they have things you are subscribed to, on an author's feed they have past articles with more popular ones foremost. It would increase functionality if they would add a way to access a list of past article - an index or possibly just a list of titles (although some, like HCR, don't have many or any clues in the title). It wouldn't hurt if they allowed the choice by the author of having a menu option of rearranging the list by topic. It wouldn't be hard, if they option was there, to do so going forward at least. Many of these articles represent quite a bit of effort on the part of the authors and many are well worth revising or using as a part of a research effort on a topic one wants to learn more about.
That's an excellent suggestion. Any way to get it to The Powers That Be?
there is a way through the Substack home page or support page or somewhere unexpected. I've made a couple of suggestions but they've been ignored. One is a way to search through your own comments to find where you made them and what the context was. The way topics recur in this world (gee, another grift???) it would help to see what you'd thought before and whether your mind had changed.
At least your own page now shows what you've liked, but comments are much more useful. In any event, you cant search the likes.
Somewhere in here: https://support.substack.com/hc/en-us
Kdsherpa, I had a lovely chat with a chatbot. Supposedly they "document" what you offer. I think that's the only flow of information inward, which is another problem! One would think they could accept suggestions and use AI to triage the TMI. We live in a very strange world. . .
"I had a lovely chat with a chatbot." Thank you for my laugh for the day! :-)
That's becoming more common all over.
That's a weird thing that happens every day. They are really stupid. It's a cheap business model to use them to support customers. I will use support by people who can read or hear me. Not AI that fits my question into an algorithm. Yes , humans use scripts, but you can at least get them to go off-script to get what you need.
The handy Wikipedia machine has decent references cited. It's a good place to start.
kdsherpa, talking to you.
I know what COINTELPRO is. I was asking Tom what his personal experience was.
As Hannah points out, look in the archive about a month ago. I told all about "Living under COINTELPRO."
I just skimmed through your archives. Only titles of columns are listed, which makes it hard to find the article. Please give me a date. Thanks.
Sorry, I know you are not uninformed about stuff. He wrote recently about his experience with the FBI. I assume he can point you to it.
"Opposition" and "resistance" are mutually compatible and mutually reinforcing. Trying to distinguish one from the other is a waste of time.
We have the makings of a real democratic “community” here on Substack with your site and many others like it communicating in chorus for the common good, and you can be sure that the Trump fascists will shut this platform down pronto as soon as the “Orange Grover Cleveland” as you dubbed him, is installed in the White House. These bastards are out to hurt us, steal our benefits and make us slaves for the Christian Fascist America they envision. Trump encouraged them with his January 6 insurrection and now thanks to Merrick Garland, he’s about to unleash them on the American people like a pack of wild dogs. Mere “resistance” in the face of these vicious, racist assholes would be a joke — opposition is the only choice… The situation reminds me of something Kenneth Rexroth said that captured the guerrilla spirit of opposition that’s required: After the corporate lackeys were finished playing golf for the day, Rexroth said, his role as an iconoclast was to go around after dark and shit in the holes.
Let’s start building the opposition now. An opposition that is able to act quickly and en masse.