Three Things: Hope Within Us
[NB: check the byline, thanks. / ~Rayne]
The orange bawbag signed that execrable dog’s breakfast into law yesterday all the while having his greasy ego stroked by the wretches who continue to work toward their fascist ends.
It’s gutting, sickening.
But the cruelty is their point – they want us to throw in the towel, roll over and yield to them.
Fuck that with a pointy object.
I refuse to go out on my knees. This is my country, our country, a country which is both diverse and struggling to encompass that diversity. It’s been great because of that diversity. We are rich as a nation because we do not have one groupthink but a wealth of thinking.
We are rich because we have learned how to work toward common goals without being forced to do so. We have been rowing this same craft together wielding our different knowledge and skills like paddles.
If we are going to stem fascism’s revolting cultural backslide, we need to get in touch with truth and hope.
I offer three perspective to help on this day-after, when we should continue to demand and celebrate No Kings.
~ 3 ~
Small farmer, crop scientist, former farm worker Sarah Taber published a thread yesterday noting a singular difference about this point in American history:
Sarah Taber @[email protected]
Hello Americans on Mastodon, I know we don’t feel like there’s much to celebrate this July 4th. It’s been a rough several years.
So I want to talk about how we’re making history right now.
It’s a long thread but you can read it in its entirety as a single page at this link:
https://mastoreader.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmstdn.social%2F%40sarahtaber%40mastodon.online%2F114797147748852077
You may learn some US history often hidden from Americans because it doesn’t reflect well on this nation. We need to get over this aversion to the gritty parts of this country’s experience, including how slavery was present in 1619. Otherwise we continue to cycle through the same crimes against humanity again and again.
Clearly we have the tools to do better and faster at that. This should give us hope.
~ 2 ~
MSFT VP of Developer Community Scott Hanselman also published a thread yesterday; most of you will nod your head in agreement at some point as you read along. But the most important part are these first two posts in that thread:
Scott Hanselman @[email protected]
It’s so frustrating that there is this illusion that we are all 49%/49% right now. Us versus them, good versus bad, and it’s all because of the BS that is the electoral system. It’s very likely 70% versus 30% and we’re just not seeing representative government. There’s just no common sense right now
Scott Hanselman @[email protected]
Absolutely insane that every vote is a squeaker, and literally no one wants this bill but they don’t wanna get primaried. This bill is insane trash and will make everyone’s life worse except mine. And I don’t want the tax break. I want to pay for kids meals and Headstart with my taxes.
You can also read this entire thread in a single page at this link:
https://mastoreader.io/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmstdn.social%2F%40shanselman%40hachyderm.io%2F114792483543360039
Too many of us have allowed the dominance of the right-wing media ecosphere to persuade us we are in the minority.
WE ARE THE MAJORITY. If we weren’t they wouldn’t be trying so fucking hard to suppress our votes.
Do we need to organize our much larger numbers, our greater energy? Heck yes, but our numbers should give us all hope.
There are more than enough of us to storm this iteration of the Bastille; we’ve kicked a king to the curb before, we can do it again.
~ 1 ~
As I have several times for Independence Days past, I’ll point to Frederick Douglass’s 1852 speech, “What to the Slave Is the Fourth of July?”
I wrote three years ago on July 4 after SCOTUS’s Dobbs decision that June, after Russia attacked Ukraine that spring:
But again, I think of of Douglass’s speech, made in 1852 before abolition of slavery with the 13th Amendment in 1865.
Though blunt about the young nation’s failings toward Black persons, Douglass used the word ‘hope’ and ‘hopefully’ seven times in his speech.
“…There is hope in the thought, and hope is much needed, under the dark clouds which lower above the horizon.
…I, therefore, leave off where I began, with hope. …”
Hope is not an easy thing when one is under constant threat of enslavement and death simply because they had the luck to be born with a particular skin color to a particular group of people. Yet Douglass had it, as have the BIPOC people of this nation who have had to resist and persevere through many waves of progress and regression.
Douglass could see a trend which fed his hopes, writing,
…my spirit is also cheered by the obvious tendencies of the age. Nations do not now stand in the same relation to each other that they did ages ago. No nation can now shut itself up from the surrounding world and trot round in the same old path of its fathers without interference. …
This trend remains, obvious in the response of democratic nations toward Russia’s assault on Ukraine intent on overthrowing a sovereign autonomous people. This attack will not succeed; it has already failed in many ways by encouraging more cohesion between other democracies including Finland and Sweden’s intent to join NATO. It has failed by exposing how hollowed out and threadbare Russia has become, eaten away by the kleptocratic forces which emerged after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The increased solidarity of democracies relied on regressive action and thought, stripping away the fuzziness of economics and culture, distilling the choice: violence against a sovereign autonomous democratic nation will not be accepted by other free, autonomous, democratic nations which will unify to support defense against such an illegitimate attack.
The solidarity across the European Union and NATO – apart from the US thanks to the orange bawbag – has only deepened. There have been hiccups but the EU and NATO are in a better position to respond to transgressions against their integrity than they have been. They took the threat seriously and organized.
That could be us. That should be us. It will be us. They’ve demonstrated hope is reasonable even under threat.
Other pockets of hope exist even within that solidarity, like the city of Paris’s efforts to become green through a 15-minute city approach. Parisians are building a new and brighter future in spite of political and existential threats.
Again, that could, should, and will be us.
We simply have to consciously choose it, get our shit together, and move together in that direction – with all the hope within us.
~ 0 ~
I’ll leave you with three more things — two quotes and an aphorism:
“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope.
Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as it is from our standpoint. Therefore we must be saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.”
― Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History
Either we have hope within us or we do not.
It is a dimension of the soul and is not essentially dependent on some particular observation of the world.
Hope is an orientation of the spirit, an orientation of the heart. It transcends the world that is immediately experienced and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons.
Hope in this deep and powerful sense is not the same as joy that things are going well or willingness to invest in enterprises that are obviously headed for early success, but rather an ability to work for something because it is good, not because it stands a chance to succeed.
Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but certainty that something makes sense regardless of how it turns out.
It is hope, above all which gives the strength to live and continually try new things.
― Vaclav Havel
E lauhoe mai na waʻa; i ke ka, i ka hoe; i ka hoe, i ke ka; pae aku i ka ʻaina.
Hawaiian proverb: Paddle together, bail, paddle, and we’ll arrive together at the shore.
Want to recommend a serialized graphic novel by actor and activist George Takei, based on his book, They Called Us Enemy. It’s a biographical recounting of his family’s experience in interment during WWII.
https://www.webtoons.com/en/graphic-novel/they-called-us-enemy/list?title_no=7685
Can’t tell you how many times this has already made me sniffle and there have been only 12 episodes so far. How awful to know the US has established camps once again.
Fred of Slacktivist has written several times on slavery in the 17th and early 18th centuries, and how fear of slave revolts drove many of the laws about it. (It wasn’t a permanent, inherited state until about 1670 or so. Fear of slave revolts, therefore they can never be free.)
George Whitfield, who pushed for the colony of Georgia, was one of those who also pushed slavery.
Thank you for the posts and links. My day is a little brighter and hopeful.
100% this. Thank you Rayne.
Hello and thank you Rayne, and all. I couldn’t reconstruct the link to Sarah Taber’s Mastodon thread. But I believe this link goes to the same thread page is the above link would. (Remove the space before ‘mastodon’.)
https:// mastodon.online/@sarahtaber/114797147296327900
There are more than enough of us to storm this iteration of the Bastille; we’ve kicked a king to the curb before, we can do it again.
Not to be nit-picky but the king we kicked to the curb was from an established monarchy and resided on the other side of the ocean in an era before airplanes. Here we have a wannabe monarch with no lineage (advantage: us) who is nevertheless working hard to get his way and steadily and incrementally succeeding at that task (disadvantage: us).
With the new ICE budget, I’m sure Alligator Alcatraz will soon be filled with its maximum occupancy of 5000 in the not too distant future – perhaps that will be the “American Bastille” to storm.
Tim Snyder (yes I know – writing on the compromised substack platform) warns of and against the possibility of turning incarcerated inmates there into slave laborers here in the U.S. as opposed to just being a holding tank prior to deportation. Kind of like current prison inmates fighting fires and not getting paid (beyond super-low “prison wages”) for their efforts. Siberian labor camps come to mind.
If places like Texas and Florida and other white-supremacy-leaning states establish their own similar camps out in remote areas to hold non-criminal non-citizens, well that’s beginning to rhyme with what Germany did, except that the German population wasn’t particularly aware of the presence of concentration camps in their own country and the ones they outsourced and ran in Poland until later on when things got really bad.
Despite the grimness of all these possibilities, I do share a sense of perhaps-irrational hope that this insanity can be slowed, stopped and start to be reversed, however long it takes…
“Not to be nit-picky”
Yeah, you are being nit picky. It should be far easier to kick out a wannabe king who doesn’t have the advantages of actual monarchy, only power afforded him by quislings, a wannabe king whose team is rife with leaks and in-fighting.
“Alligator Alcatraz will soon be filled with its maximum occupancy of 5000 in the not too distant future”
There are already more than 4000 people gone missing. Pay attention. You’re already behind.
“I do share a sense of perhaps-irrational hope”
Knock off the “perhaps-irrational” stuff. Hope is what you do regardless of the odds because the objective is worth it.
In my case, keeping my family whole, keeping other families like mine whole and safe inside the US, is not “perhaps=irrational” hope but a worthy objective.
Oh, and this bit by Snyder: “warns of and against the possibility of turning incarcerated inmates there into slave laborers here in the U.S.”
What the actual fuck do you think has been happening inside the US to incarcerated inmates, particularly when private corporations run prisons? Slavery is still legal under the 13th Amendment:
See https://www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor for more. AMERICAN CITIZENS as well as non-citizens have been forced into slave labor during incarceration.
The just-passed atrocity of a bill will radically re-energize the longterm project of those determined to keep slavery (or its closest cousins, including systematic disenfranchisement and suppressed access to opportunities) alive and in the service of our newly empowered ruling class.
Even “anti-woke” extremists don’t like to admit that the caste system they are hardening with their new legislation has echoes of slavery; that it will create conditions for those dehumanized as “illegals” that duplicate those of enslaved persons, and lower the quality of life for poor Americans so as to render them vulnerable to a “criminal justice” oxymoron designed to turn them into meat.
The cruelty is abject. I wish I felt your hope, Rayne, but I am ashamed to live here. For the first time in my life I feel like I am betraying my own ancestors by not sacrificing my life for the future they (and I) once dreamed of, the future my dad carried me on his shoulders to hear Dr. King speak of in 1963. Dr. King knew the fundamental dream was economic.
So does Trump.
Reply to Ginevra diBenci
July 5, 2025 at 3:42 pm
Your angry frustration is why I have *repeatedly* referred to Douglass’s 1852 speech. Black Americans have had white American exceptionalism crammed in their faces every day, watched as civil rights activists like Martin Luther King Jr. have been co-opted in death to speak for the same culture continuing to enslave members of their families and their friends.
And yet they persevere every day for the reasons Douglass laid out.
You have not yet been asked to risk your life. You should be asking yourself daily, though, how you can throw sand in the gears. How you can organize with others to make your efforts more effective, more powerful, because working together will not only lift your spirits but it will achieve more faster and provide additional cover for future work.
Gods, we haven’t really even tried. Sarah Taber notes we are already making a dent because we have our rather casual use of the internet at hand to aid us. Imagine if we really, REALLY tried.
I’ve got a story to tell on this subject. I volunteer at a 100-watt radio station in one of the several small towns near my house. The maximum possible listener base is probably 10,000 people, and that is the far outside maximum. The area is considered a news desert, so the station has received a small grant for gathering/disseminating news.
I was online today (Saturday) and discovered that $Local_Investigative_Body has discovered that one of the local cities has become toxic for it’s employees because they’re violating a number of employment laws having to do with harassment, bullying, etc., not to mention their own policy and procedures manual. I downloaded the report and sent it to the person who runs the radio station, and suggested a person they could start with in terms of gathering the private information which isn’t in the public report. A reporter has been assigned and will be following up the story.
Do you think you’re helpless? If you’ve got the ability to send an email you can make a difference!
So there’s hope. And even if you need to stay under the radar there’s still stuff you can do. Babysitting so someone else can make it to a protest or meeting. Contributing paints and poster-board. Contributing cash if you know someone who’s part of a local movement and trustworthy. (Or give someone a gift card to the dollar store/wherever has protest supplies.) Boycotting the Three Ts (Target, Tesla and T-Mobile.) Drive someone without a car to a spot a couple blocks from where the protest will start. Etc.
I told someone recently that it’s a little like being soldier in World War II. You might not be wading ashore on the Utah beachhead. Maybe you’re stateside, loading boxes on trucks all day long. You’re still contributing.
(Also I’ve been studying tactics of non-violent resistance for most of the day, but that’s another story.)
Reply to Troutwaxer
July 5, 2025 at 11:31 pm
This is the good stuff. There’s always something we can be doing, where ever we are, with what we have, to make a difference.
Thanks for sharing. And thanks for volunteering to help with media in the “news desert” — we need more of that even in places that aren’t deserts.
replying to Rayne and Troutwaxer:
I did not say I felt helpless, or that I have thrown in the towel and quit. I continue to organize my friends and neighbors. My “job” as an editor right now involves a project that, when published, should prove a radical reappraisal of our court system, specifically SCOTUS and the Dobbs decision. The author, a decades-long insider and wickedly inspired writer, engaged my help last year.
Both of us have long histories of depression, which has been significantly exacerbated by Trump’s election and the ensuing autocratic takeover. Throwing ourselves into this work (while attending every protest with the *best* signs, courtesy of my author friend) has supplied a sliver of…hope?
My personal history makes it hard to even type that word. But it’s true. I’m a fighter. I will never stop. It’s just gotten really hard lately to see a way through to this foul smoke clearing, at least for me. I come here for sustenance. Thank you for providing it.
Bravo!
and agreed.
“There are more than enough of us to storm this iteration of the Bastille; we’ve kicked a king to the curb before, we can do it again.”
My observation is that there are Trmpists who see January 6 as their version of storming the Bastille. Lots of edges to that image.
Oddly enough, finished Thomas Paine’s Rights of Man this morning, his refutation of Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France which I will read next. Paine is extremely prescient and seems to be a decent economist too. I have to read more of his work. It may come in useful as we proceed to take back whatever democracy we’ve ever had.
I an NOT promoting violence. I AM making a point. Metaphorical pitchforks will only spill metaphorical blood. These fascists are serious. They are not playing around. Blood will be shed. Be prepared, ready, and willing to bleed.
While the media has been chasing its tail with the orchestrated cliffhanger in Congress, virtually nothing has been said about the truly critical: DOJ has been ordered to investigate election workers and file criminal charges.
Shades of Putin.
Agreed: explanation is not excuse. Acknowledging reality is not condoning lawless action. We have already seen political assassination (twice in the past 2 weeks). Being polite to violence doesn’t make it stop. Per the great Canadian band, Odds:
Though it’s not the friendliest of conversation
Violence demands your participation
And now you’re watching as it sweeps the nation under…
I watched George Clooney’s live performance of Good Night and Good Luck on CNN a few weeks ago. The very end of the play was breathtaking — when a clip of Musk’s Nazi salute was flashed at the end of a montage of events documented across American media, I damn near barfed. It was so shocking to see it in the context which was much more powerful than static clips in my social media feed.
See: https://youtu.be/_3S2ymUw_Hs?feature=shared&t=5179
The end this performance is not the same as the original play’s script. The question it asks demands an answer.
I’m not ready to advocate violence and I won’t permit it in comments. But we have not yet asked ourselves what we can do, what we are prepared to do, up to the point of violence to put the brakes on this fascist project. I think of the simplicity and persistence of the Las Madres de Plaza de Mayo resistance movement — we haven’t even tried that yet and it’s wholly within our power to do this across the country, for starters.
I watched that also. Truly important.
There’s a PDF out there which lists 198 non-violent strategies/tactics. It should be very easily found with a DuckDuckGo search. (“198 Methods of nonviolent action” will pull it right up.) Everything listed there is a good subject for research, but note that not all of them are legal. (For example, I wouldn’t engage in ‘protest counterfeiting.’Y)
But it’s still a very good place to start when contemplating your own strategies.
“198 Methods of Nonviolent Action” is the work of political scientist Gene Sharp. The work or lists based on his work are indeed available across the internet.
https://commonslibrary.org/198-methods-of-nonviolent-action/
https://nvdatabase.swarthmore.edu/browse-methods
Agree that “politically motivated counterfeiting” isn’t legal and I can’t advocate that item at all because of all the 198 items that one is likely to earn one prosecution and detention.
The Commons Social Change Library also offers “Civil Resistance in the 21st Century” by Michael Beers, including a video-webinar.
https://commonslibrary.org/civil-resistance-tactics-in-the-21st-century/
Thanks for recommending the nvdatabase. That’s an awesome resource, and I’m going to point the leadership of the local Indivisible group at it.
This was great Rayne, thank you. My anger keeps finding it’s way out of me in tears of rage.
There are two sorts of “rich”. One is that of greed, supported by capitalism. The other comes from waking up, breathing the air of survival, having food and water, family and friends, a meaningful existence and, finally, a good night’s sleep to be followed by the reiteration of the day. Any peasant can appreciate the latter (or dream of it) but for those in pursuit of wealth and power there is no such peace. As a culture, we have largely lost sight of the simple joy of being.
Yes, there are two sorts of rich — at least. Ask persons abroad what the US had that they envied *before* the Trump years, before the Bush years. One thing in particular a Chinese national told me around 2005 they envied was our blue skies. Another Chinese national in 2000 told me China sent their students to learn business from us because the US taught what they couldn’t.
I think of Dutch national who told me in 1999 they envied the choices we had, and at the time, the lack of armed law enforcement in airports because we were an open society. A South African told me they envied our ability to leave lawn furniture outside, unworried about theft.
Rich we have been. We haven’t appreciated it.
I don’t think detainees being deported to South Sudan, when they are from countries nowhere near there, including Mexico, have any hope whatsoever.
Exactly what does this say about us, when all legal avenues have been exhausted, and we cannot do anything to stop it?
I am asking YOU to have hope.
I am also asking YOU to avoid suppressing hope in others.
And I am absolutely certain we haven’t even really tried to slow this fascist movement. What does it say that you think “we cannot do anything to stop it”?
It appears that all legal avenues have been closed, at least for the time being (until the Fascists are voted out). I don’t see any recourse for those being disappeared to 3rd countries, because the legal system seems to be tapped out for those poor souls.
Even Canadians are disappearing into the system.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/canadians-ice-detention-1.7577584
There’s a new smartphone app out this week called “Iceblock” which warns folks about the presence of ICE raids in real time within a 5-mile local radius and allows users of the app to make appropriate decisions based on information that the app provides to them: avoid the area or approach the area depending on interest or safety.
The Trump administration is not very happy about this – and was the subject of denigration from Karoline Leavitt her-very-self from the White House briefing room, claiming that the app has contributed assaults on ICE officers. We’ll see whether they try to go after the developer, but he doesn’t seem to care and is willing to deal with some potential fascist pushback in the near future:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXIIhAuwlTs
Matt___B says:
July 5, 2025 at 8:19 pm
I think I saw a poster for that, on a bus stop or someplace similar. Wasn’t in a place where i could stop and look.
The Iceblock app quickly became a bestseller.
I just tried to download and install the Iceblock app (I live in LA, why not?) but was informed that my iPhone is too old! Requires IOS 18.2
Thank you for encouraging hope, which some days seems in short supply,
I had been kidding myself that come the midterms we might take both houses and then get something positive done. Then I realized that as long as Trump is POTUS he can veto anything and will. That leaves hopes deferred until November, 2028. I suppose if Alito or Thomas passes or retires we can prevent Trump from picking another reptilian jurist.
What else can we do in the meantime to minimize the damage being done to our country?
Get acquainted with resistance movements through history. What worked, what didn’t, across the different forms of authoritarian and fascist governments?
Get active in state/local politics as a Democrat or Independent. Work on building systems that can resist executive orders, ex. aid movements to eliminate gerrymandering since the constitution says election operations are the purview of states.
For starters.
Lots of political work to be done at state and local levels.
Rayne, thank you for always holding the line. Being here, reading yours & others’ words, has made me stronger in so many ways.
Apparently Speaker Johnson handed over his gavel to Convict-1 / Krasnov / TACO at the signing, which is as symbolic a truth as I have ever seen out of the MAGA coalition. They probably don’t realize the importance either. I won’t mention the odious Georgia Katniss but that is what bothers the rubes now.
So as Rayne noted, we are the majority but we are also being subjected to systematic voter suppression. The ERIC database is back, and Cleta Mitchell is unapologetic. Thom Hartmann has yet another post over on DKos, as well as Greg Palast who has been on this beat for a long time and has all of the receipts. So, what should we do, every one of us?
We need to ensure that we continue to monitor our voter registrations and make sure all hoops are jumped through now. We need to support the legal challenges to voting rights based upon flawed data, which does work (just ask Kris Kobach) and filing those cases early as possible. If we all keep our vote, we will prevail in the 2026 midterms and the nightmare goes a long way toward stopping.
I am most worried about the SAVE Act. We need to resume contacting our representatives in both houses regardless of their party affiliation to tell them disenfranchising people through this legislation is unacceptable.
We can’t let Marc Elias do all the heavy work on this. Organizing protests against this and any other attempts at disenfranchisement are critical.
ADDER: Johnson handing the orange bawbag his gavel is the same as handing him his manhood. Johnson has no johnson, it’s in the bawbag’s sweaty little paws. Louisianans should convey this to him, that he’s forfeiting his power over a co-equal branch of government to a serial abuser and convict.
Another item is to vote early if your jurisdiction allows it, and also ensure the legislature get those votes counted (but not reported, which can skew elections) prior to election day to start counts with those locked in already. Recall how fixated Convict-1 / Krasnov / TACO is with election night results.
I’d also say helping those who can’t vote in person (like a phone tree) would help but this is a particular target of the suppressors (although TBF it seems it’s GOP operatives getting busted for fraudulent behavior, just sayin’) so be very aware of what is allowed in your jurisdiction. As an example, many of these suppression methods would prevent our service members from having their votes counted.
The GOP will stop at nothing, and have done a test run in NC. Make them prove everything before anything gets tossed, open the entire ballot and all precincts to scrutiny (i.e. don’t let the GOP get away with cherry picking) if any claims are raised.
According to Hartmann, when all the votes in FL were finally counted after Bush v. Gore handed the election to Shrub, Gore actually did win.
Thank you Rayne. Beautiful Hawaiian proverb.
“Hope is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.” – Emily Dickinson.
H elping
O ther
P eople
E qually
There are other Hawaiian proverbs or aphorisms that are helpful to us; they emerged from a culture that relied heavily on cooperation. Rowing outrigger canoes has been essential to Hawaiian survival, requiring a shared understanding of roles and goals. We could use the same kind of understanding going forward.
Aohe a pau ka ike i ka halau ho’okahi — All knowledge is not contained in one school.
My mother was born and raised in Hawaii. Although, Portuguese she embraced the Aloha Spirit of love, compassion, kindness and respect for others and Mother Nature.
Aloha Spirit is good medicine for ALL.
Aloha is state law which is supposed to guide the behavior of state employees:
Also:
“Hope” is the thing with feathers
By Emily Dickinson
“Hope” is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
And sings the tune without the words –
And never stops – at all –
And sweetest – in the Gale – is heard –
And sore must be the storm –
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm –
I’ve heard it in the chillest land –
And on the strangest Sea –
Yet – never – in Extremity,
It asked a crumb – of me.
What a wonderful read- so glad I discovered this site. Yes there is always hope! But if you are feeling down, there are many ways to lift your spirits and find optimism. Helping neighbors and volunteering to help others in need are wonderful ways to spend time. Participating in protests is also great, just be sure to remain peaceful and obey laws. And remember Democrats are winning elections and have an excellent chance of taking back the house next year!!
[Welcome to emptywheel. Please choose and use a unique username with a minimum of 8 letters. We adopted this minimum standard to support community security. Because your username is too short and common, your username will be temporarily changed to match the date/time of your first known comment until you have a new compliant username. /~Rayne]
Late in the thread, and apologize for that. I wonder what the community’s impressions are of Elon’s posting of an “America Party.” Does it offer hope, or smoke and might-be? If Elon is big in any such party, what’re the expectations? Would it undo a logjam, or complitate one with greater uncertainty?
I view Elon as sincere in this, but am willing to hear otherwise, if anyone cares to see it as “hope” or “fear and loathing.”
I’d put no stock in Elon. Maybe he can take a slice of Trump’s support. but otherwise zippo.
Thank you, Rayne. This brought a lump of hope to my throat and reminded me of these lines from William Blake’s “Milton.”
There is a Moment in each Day that Satan cannot find
Nor can his Watch Fiends find it, but the Industrious find
This Moment & it multiply. & when it once is found
It renovates every Moment of the Day if rightly placed.
Ooh, that’s a good bit, I’ll have to file that way. Thanks!
Very late in the thread. To extend the paddle metaphor, there’s a right size paddle for everyone and trying to use too big a paddle means you get exhausted and don’t contribute as much to the group. Use the biggest paddle you can, step up in sizes as you gain strength, but don’t expect to paddle like an Olympian right out of the gate.
And know your place in the canoe. Not everyone has the same skill set or power, they should paddle to their strengths.
https://goldcoastoutriggers.com/membership/coaching-skills-and-training/six-man-roles/
I’m going to save this thread when it closes. So many edifying thoughts that articulate what I feel but cannot say.