Time to maybe back off the anti-political correctness obsession

I think it is time for people, particularly conservatives and libertarians, and cocktail party liberals, who are so angry and indignant against "politically correctness" and "social justice warriors" to recognize there is a fundamental difference between the nanny brigade, who tell us to not say things that are racist and sexist, and those who are racist and sexist--and especially those who are violent with respect to their racism and sexism. The "p.c. crowd" are a pain in the neck sometimes, but the actual racist, etc. folks are dangerous, ignorant, horrible, and, when they really get riled up, violent. There is no equivalence in almost any case one may name.  If you find one, it only shows how attenuated and remote the comparison actually is, and why there is no equivalency.

I think the events of the past week should should be a reminder for those who revere the First Amendment that words sometimes do lead to actions. It does not mean we should undermine the First Amendment. It just means we should not elevate "sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me" to a constitutional "right." Sometimes words are a prelude to an assault. Sometimes words themselves are an assault, as in a threat.

This should also be a reminder that weaponizing the First Amendment to deny a gay couple a blank sheet cake in a style often used for weddings, Rand Paul's, Barry Goldwater's, and too many libertarians' hesitation to support civil rights employment, consumer, and housing laws on the basis of free speech for discriminators, etc. have very real and repressive consequences.

And for those right wingers who think most American violence emanates from "the left," let's keep the following in mind: There was, admittedly, a lot of labor-management violence in the United States from around 1870 through 1935 (the latter the year the Congress passed, and FDR signed, the National Labor Relations Act). But the parties in that period saw their struggles as a war. Management hired men (rarely women) who were armed to repress workers, and too often corruptly controlled regular law enforcement. Powerlessness workers resorted to violence where the police were in the hands of management. And labor people recognized what happens when their side has even one bomb thrower, as the Haymarket riot of 1886 revealed. If we want to call the labor side "the left," then let's call the management side "the right." The Haymarket Affair Wiki page gives us a much better perspective than some right wingers' tweet. And the John Sayles film, "Matewan," tells us much about the West Virginia coal wars of the 1920s for those averse to reading non-fiction.

However, when we look on the right wing side of the ledger, we see lynchings of blacks, lynching of labor union organizers and leaders, and the like. The culture of Jim Crow is not something the "left" created, cultivated, or supported. And the violence within a Jim Crow system on a daily basis is one that is often not recognized. All of that, conservatives and right wingers, is what you folks mostly if not always bear as a burden in American history. And since the late 1970s, we have seen countless examples of bombings, shootings, knifings, and outright killing of abortion providers. That, again, is not coming from the "left." One may also look at incarceration rate increases as having a violent undertone from the State that is used to keep "the Other" in place.

The Euro-American genocide of the Native Americans is, admittedly, a project that went across most of the mainstream of the United States' political spectrum, having recently completed "The Indigenous Peoples History of the United States."

There is, in short, a reason to not be a First Amendment absolutist, contrary to ACLU lawyers and more often right wingers these days who are obsessed in their denouncing of "political correctness." There is, in fact, reason for us to begin to say even the language of racism, sexism, homophobia, and, once again, anti-Semitism, has no place in our society. I have refrained, in the past, from overstating any attack on the "p.c. crowd," owing to my recognition of how the right wing weaponized what was originally an argument among elements of the "left" in the 1980s, where some lefties would say, "Hey, can we lighten up for a moment..." We can point culturally to this from a 1985 song from the liberal-left oriented a cappella "new wave" group from the Bay Area of California, The Bobs, "Please Let Me Be Your Third World Country," though one listens carefully to this in our current culture, and the fellow's perspective in the song does seem like he is less than sensitive in that "manly" way :). But when William Bennett, the late Allan Bloom, and George Will got hold of the phrase "politically correct," in the late 1980s, it became a political weapon used to attack anyone who was concerned with racism, sexism, and the like, and it gave an almost martyr status to those who were in fact racist, sexist, and not otherwise likable at all.

At this moment in American history, we are in the throes of right wing governmental dominance, and pray for sanity in the upcoming elections, and have, as a president, a man who thinks p.c. leftists are the real enemy in our society, and often wears the coat of a martyred man castigated by forces of "political correctness." And with this president's rhetoric, we are seeing how people who are racist, sexist, etc. are emboldened to take more and more acts that are abusive, and now increasingly violent. From this, we ought to recognize there are, at least sometimes, consequences arising from these sorts of verbal statements and arguments. I am not prescribing an Alien & Sedition Acts, Espionage Act, or Smith Act. I am also not saying we should enact criminal anti-hate speech laws (though I would like t see more legislative study, in our current time, as to how the laws affect society, good and bad, in Canada, Great Britain, and France, and other civilized places, and if they have a place within First Amendment jurisprudence). I am, instead, asking us, as a society, to cool the anti-p.c. rhetoric, and realize p.c. people can be, again, a pain in the neck sometimes, but they are on the side of civility and decency at the end of the day. The racists, the sexists, the anti-Semites, etc. are not on the side of civility and decency, and we should instead be looking to sing together the song from They Might Be Giants, "Your Racist Friend."*

*And, in the parlance of cable news spinners, maybe it is time for people who are Republican, people who are conservative, and right wing, to denounce clearly and loudly the racist, the sexist, and show us we are really all on the same side. You know, the way cable news spinners, Republicans, conservatives, and right wingers say to liberals and leftists when some little, isolated "anti-fa" group or individual does some property damage, or one of them punches Richard Spencer, or say to all Muslims in America when some Islamic fundamentalist somewhere else on the planet blows up a market place. Yup. You folks know the drill, doncha? :)  

A bleeding heart liberal feels badly about the right wing wanna-bomber, and offers a way out of the present destructive discourse

Now that we have chastised on Facebook those right wingers who called these pipe bomb deliveries to George Soros, various Democratic Party office holders, and newspapers, a "false flag" operation where Democrats and Soros did this to themselves, we have learned much about the arrested perpetrator.

I read this AP article about this fellow's life, and, for me, I felt a deep sadness for this fellow as he proves my adage that Trumpism is the socialism of fools.  This fellow is a canary in the coal mine, as is his susceptibility to the racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, Islamaphobic siren calls, and the delusional conspiracy theories and hateful priorities of Trump-FoxNews-Gateway Pundit-Alex Jones-world, shows. He was supposedly not "political" until Trump, which shows us how corporate media's promotion of Trump, after nearly 70 years of anti-socialist propaganda from corporate media, left this fellow maddened with irrational rage, and only the language of fascism and racism to articulate that rage.  It is why this pitiful soul is a fool-- but one for whom I, again, felt sadness as I read the article describing his life.  This man deserved better from our society, right from the start, and we, as a society, failed him long before he failed, and before he began to scare us.

Americans need a return to what I have called an Argument among the Rational.  And I believe the best chance for that to happen is to defeat the Republican Party candidates who are running for office or seeking re-election in these upcoming federal and State elections, and defeat the Republicans again in the 2020 elections. The real and, again, rational public policy arguments are among neo-liberal/corporate Democrats and the progressive Democrats inside the Democratic Party. And I wish to be clear that a rational argument does not mean the argument will always be civil, though it will be more civil than the hateful rantings from Trump, etc-world.  The argument among the rational also does not mean the neo-lib/corporatists, at least, will suddenly play fair.  The neo-lib/corporate Democrats continue to have the money--and money is power--and they continue to have the support of corporate media, starting with CNN and especially MSNBC, or as one of my FB friends calls it, MSDNC. But progressives have social media, at least for this moment, and that is more than progressives had once unions ceased to be an organizing institution for at least economically progressive values. 

Some may correctly ask, where does that leave libertarians? In my view, libertarians have a stake in the argument among the rational, though, inside of the Democratic Party, libertarians are, at best, and frankly, thankfully, on the margins.  I say that because, for libertarians, their argument against both neo-liberals/corporate Dems and progressive Dems is one over First Principles, where libertarians reject the very idea of government as a major actor to help people economically, and where they refuse to accept the very idea of government enacting public policies in the economic realm. When libertarians proclaim "taxation is theft," such a proclamation sums up why arguing with libertarians is not conducive to the type of argument progressives and neo-libs/corporate Democrats have with each other.  It is not that the proclamation "taxation is theft" is always wrong.  It is simply not always right, and therefore not a guiding principle for those interested in public policy making. 

Libertarians, however, will likely rise in numbers if the Republicans are defeated in this upcoming election, and then defeated again in 2020. Libertarians, therefore, have a stake in voting out Republicans in the short run, too as it is likely to lead them to a stronger libertarian movement. We may even see some of the neo-lib/corporatist Democrats taking up with libertarians if progressives are successful in pushing their agenda into the power corridors of the Democratic Party, which at this point, remains a long shot. Right now, I wish there was a viable way to convince progressive Democrats to leave the Democratic Party.  But they will not at this time, and so we have no choice, I believe, but follow this two-step prescription.  However, as I used to say, and should begin saying again, the better political party duopoly is Libertarian on one side and Working Families Party/Green on the other.  I say that because, where that alternative duopoly agrees is they are largely against the Empire, both the cost and conduct of the Empire, while the current duopoly of Republicans and Democrats are all in favor of the Empire.  Also, the WF/G and Libertarian duopoly would have a principled social moderation in the main, meaning live and let live with respect to issues like abortion and homosexuality, and have a better grasp of the importance of civil liberties for an open society.  The authoritarian and pro-Empire strains embedded within the Republican and Democratic duopoly remain deep and wide, and it is difficult to remove those strains, which are truly stains on the best values or ideals of our Republic. And for those who think, why bother trying to reform an irredeemable Democratic Party, my take is the argument among the rational, and the growing recognition among progressives that their views reflect the majority of Americans on issue after issue, may finally convince enough progressives to seek a new party themselves if the Democratic Party leadership continues to use its money power to suppress progressives.  I wish to be clear I am all for fissures in both parts of what Gore Vidal called The Property Party (Republicans and Democrats).

Right now, however, the actions, and now arrest and exposure of this latest mad-wanna-bomber should be a wake up call to those who claim to denounce politically-motivated violence, and, frankly, a wake up call that this pitiful man's deluded, angry, irrational world view arose out of the discourse Republicans have been the ones primarily promoting.  One hopes this series of events and arrest galvanizes those natural constituencies of Democrats to vote in the upcoming State and local races and congressional mid-terms.  It is high past time to start replacing those who have siren-called and promoted this sad, pitiful wanna-bomber's thinking and eventually actions, and before replacing corporate Democrats and cynical politicians such as Pelosi and Schumer, we must begin replacing the Republicans who block the ability to engage in a rational, policy-based set of arguments.  That is the sum and substance of this upcoming election.  In the 2020 election, I hope we will see more primary challenges inside the Democratic Party, and that is a good thing if we are to truly take back our nation from elites who continue to fail us.

Amos Oz's "Judas" and the tragedy of Zionism

I just completed Amos Oz's latest novel, "Judas," which I considered his best in years.  It has been a big year for me in reading apostate Jewish Israeli writers, particularly Oz and A.B. Yehoshua, as I myself reached the conclusion that further US military or economic aid to Israel should be stopped, as enabling Israeli conduct in the occupied territory of the West Bank and the prison known as Gaza has no moral, political, or legal justification at this point.  I feel for Oz, as Oz posits, in this novel, an Ah'had Ha'am/Chomskyesque perspective about the founding of Israel, within a narrative that parses the entire idea of who is a traitor and what constitutes treachery.  

Having read Oz's novel nearly in tandem with Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz's "Indigenous Peoples History of the United States," which effectively reduces European Americans and, by implication, Jews who escaped Europe and other Arab nations to form and develop the nation of Israel, to the status of settler-colonialists, I am more convinced than ever that the modern originator of Zionism, Theodor Herzl, would have given up the Zionist project had he been shown the rest of the history of the 20th Century, something Shimon Peres, in his elegant long essay-book, "The Imaginary Voyage: With Theodor Herzl in Israel," also recognized--though Peres was writing in the shadow of the 1993 Oslo Agreement, and honestly thought the agreement was going to lead toward a two state solution and peace with Palestinians.* Ah'had Ha'am's more gentle cultural Zionism, which Ha'am had already begun establishing concurrently with Herzl's intellectual-political breakthrough, may have been a far more effective way of helping Jews escape the genocidal Christian-nationalist dominated Europe without making a majority of Arabs believe this was simply one more colonialist project emanating from Europe and the United States of America.

It is not that I find the Zionist project to be irredeemable as much as a tragedy of two people who have been oppressed.  For surely Arabs have been repressed by European colonialism, and the strongmen dictators our nation and the nations of Europe were only too happy to support and sometimes push on Arab peoples.  I have, as readers of mine know, long found both useful and essentially correct Isaac Deutscher's parable about Palestinians and Jews to be the basis for a mutual understanding for both peoples.  My disengagement from Israel is based upon the fact that a majority of Israeli Jews have no belief in the power or correctness of that parable, and people such as Oz and Yehoshua (and activists such as Uri Avnery) stand as traitors to the majority of Israeli Jews, though to me, they are prophets and wisemen who are tragically ignored.  And my anger at easy European criticism of Israel grows by the year as I come face to face with the fact there would have been no need for Zionism had European Christians not been so afflicted with a nationalism that too often demanded European Jews among them be oppressed and eventually killed.

* Peres' book recognizes how Herzl was himself closer to Ha'am's sensibility as Herzl's book, "The Old New Land," a novel depicting a future state for Jews in Palestine, was in fact a binational state housing Arabs and Jews that was not explicitly Jewish.  Herzl's vision may therefore be said to have been "corrupted" (betrayed, in Oz's parlance throughout the "Judas" novel) by Chaim Weizmann and David Ben-Gurion, and certainly Ze'ev Jabotinsky, the latter who was an intellectual founder of the Likud Party in Israel, and who, in the 1920s and 1930s, posited a literally pro-fascist version of Zionism. In the Wiki entry, one finds Jabotinsky's position on expelling Arabs alongside his vision of a separate but equal status for Arabs in a Jewish State--showing how blind Jabotinsky was to how separate but equal "worked" in the United States with African-American descendants of slaves.  I had a non-blood relative who survived Auschwitz who was a devoted Polish follower of Jabotinsky, who told me of how proud he was to wear the fascist uniform that mimicked Mussolini's uniforms for Italian fascists.  This Holocaust survivor was also virulently racist who once said, at a Passover dinner, the biggest mistake "you Americans" made was freeing the blacks. Just remember that next time someone wants to tell us that having a tattoo number on your arm from Auschwitz makes you a moral beacon. :(

Sometimes YouTube just gets me. It really gets me.

They Might Be Giants have a new song.  "The Communists Have The Music."

Yes, I think Yip Harburg, Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger would agree.  And Phil Ochs would laugh and say, Ya know, maybe they do.

And as Tom Lehrer memorably sang, "We had all the good songs."

I get to meet Tom Perez, Chair of the DNC

Funny how DNC types refuse to recognize how the Republicans, a minority of voters' party, keep on winning elections.  They have played nasty, they lied, they made up attacks on opponents, who they termed the enemy, and pushed hard at racist siren calls so that no matter what befell the candidates for their hypocrisy or corruption, the voters they were preaching to would stay with them.  And what this article in the November 2018 Atlantic about the rise of Gingrich and the modern Republican Party does not say, is how, once in power, they undermine access to voting, undermine representation of Democratic Party constituencies, and strengthen the power of their own constituencies.  It is why I was so angry with Obama, in the start of his presidency, for not bailing out workers and the poor, and for not pushing union law reform, i.e. "card check."

Unlike Gingrich and his successors, however, all I have wanted from the Democrats is for the Democrats to tell the truth regarding matters of public policy, stand tall for regular people, and promote policies that strengthen harmony and common interests among people across races, ethnicities, religions, etc.  As we look back over the past thirty odd years, this was (now) obviously too much to ask.  However, the effects of the Sanders campaign in 2015-2016 have given our nation a chance which perhaps will resonate in various parts of the nation in this year's mid-terms and Statehouse elections.

It is in this context that I say I was able to see and meet Tom Perez, Democratic National Committee (DNC) chair, yesterday in my recent hometown of Rio Rancho, NM.  Perez spoke in a very fiery, passionate, and policy oriented way for nearly 20 minutes to a very friendly crowd of over 100 Democratic Party activists. As this was a mid morning event, it was largely older folks, but the crowd included older Native Americans and Latinos in addition to white folks.  I was happy Perez passionately ticked off policy positions that were BernieCrat New Deal, not neo-liberal Clintonoid.  

I was able to go right up to him after he spoke. I quoted back to him his statement how important it is to vote Dem up and down the ticket. I then told him I have been saying the same thing on social media.  He replied, "Amen, brother."  But, I added, I have also said on social media that, after the election, Democrats have to push back against the Joe Manchins who voted for Kavanaugh (which Perez said to the Rio Rancho crowd was a horrible thing for Republicans to have done, never mentioning Manchin) and push back against the corporate Democrats who control the money in the Democratic Party. I said we progressives should prepare for primarying if they will not back what you, Tom, have been saying right here on matters of public policy.  Perez's reaction was to quickly turn away.  Smart move, brother. :)

Yesterday afternoon, I mailed back the DNC's mailed survey addressed to me (usually my wife gets these, but this time, for reasons unknown, I did).  As always, we sent no money and we put no stamp over the free postage area of the envelope.  When the survey asked what the DNC should be doing to support the nation, I wrote, "Stop pissing on progressives" and proceeded to quote David Frum's formulation that Republican leaders fear their base, Democratic leaders hate their base.  I then wrote, "You will never get a dime from me because of the way you treat progressives" (I can't remember the exact words already, but that was the paraphrase).

One other thing I'll give Perez, though.  Twice, in his talk yesterday, he said the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC have to earn back trust among the party's constituents, and that the recent party reforms, including superdelegate reduction of power, were one step in that direction.  There was hard applause among a sizable minority in the room which Perez noted.  Perez then said much more needed to be done, but of course he did not say what that would entail.  We should never, ever count on Perez, who Obama pushed to run for chair in order to stop a progressive challenger, to do the right thing. However, I know, deep down, Perez is a decent person who knows how horrible the DNC, DSCC, and DCCC have been and remain.  Their "mistakes" are always about attacks on progressives, and promoting corporate Democrats in pre-primary "money primaries." This has been a disaster  when one recognizes the policies corporate Democrats promote not only do not command the allegiance of the majority of voters in our nation, but dilute the message of Democrats in a time when Republicans stay steadfast with their message.  

As I have said, this is a two step process. First, vote out Republicans to take back the nation.  Then, protest and primary corporate Democrats who continue to step out of line to take back the Democratic Party.  But again, if the Dems are too far in the minority among voters in your State, vote against Republicans now, but start alternative party development thereafter.  

Caveat to unity

An update on my unity blog post.

1. Any progressive in CA who is considering voting for DiFi when there is a simple, two person race between a solid, stable, rational progressive and DiFi, please hand in your progressive card. Now.

And any cable news addict or corporate Democrat who thinks Bernie Sanders, who has more energy than a healthy 50 year old, is too old, should look at how terrible DiFi is at 85.  She looks physically weak and appears less than fully "there."  If Bernie looked this way, cable news attacks would be unending.

I remain all for unity in this electoral moment, and have said, and continue to say, when there is a Democratic Party candidate against a Republican for this election cycle, it is time to vote for the Democratic Party candidate in nearly every single situation for statewide office and federal Congressional/Senate seats. 

But in the US Senate race in CA, there is only a choice between a progressive Dem and corporate Dem (the Republican candidate finished third and is therefore not on the Nov ballot). It's a freebie for any New Deal oriented Democratic Party voter. To allow Donald Trump's attacks on DiFi (which I strongly disagree with Trump, and deny his charge against her) to influence that vote is beyond silly. It is the worst form of "yay My Team" when her opponent is another Democrat, and someone who is young, strong, and progressive minded. Who would you rather have in the Senate in 2021, especially if a Democratic Party president wins in 2020? DiFi doing the bidding of Big Pharma--again--or a progressive, solid guy like Kevin DeLeon? Again. Turn in your progressive card if you can't see your way through this choice.

2. Worse, in Maryland, it seems too many white Boomer Dems (I think we should start calling ourselves Boobers as in boobs) are deserting the solid Democratic Party candidate for governor for a Republican who is only slightly less right wing than Trump. Slightly less. For those Dems, I never want to hear about Ralph Nader and Jill Stein ever again. Ever.

My hope is we still hold together as Dems across the land and ensure there is at least a switch of power in the House. The Senate looks worse and worse every day, but we should be exhorting Democratic Party natural constituencies to vote so that there is a tip over of the Senate, too.

3. My only major caveat to my Democratic Party unity advice is in places like Oklahoma, where certain FB friends live. In such States, if your Dem candidate is down by more than 20 points with no hope for a comeback, then at least try to promote third party candidates in your State who have some gravitas. I would even say, after this November, look to promote third parties in those States overall. If the Dems are practically speaking, dead, go third party. That is also my advice to Republicans in CA. Might as well escape the loons and corrupt officials in the Republican establishment and go Libertarian. Deal with their nuts, too, but if enough saner folks take over, so much the better. I will set forth the following hypothesis: The moment a third party takes on second party status in a State, the other party in the "traditional" duopoly will hear big footsteps, and that will open up a vista to another third party developing. Libertarian success in a Blue State will help Greens. Green success in a Red State will help Libertarians. The key to voter turnout is electoral reform and the third parties should unite on that. Just as sane Libertarians do not want to dismantle the police and fire, or even libraries, sane Libertarians should recognize free public media airtime (television and radio) and public financing of elections. If one is running for public office, why allow crony capitalists to corrupt it? 

I also think there is a sizable minority of Americans, for example, ready to challenge the Empire from within, and together, they can help influence enough people to make that a majority. That alone is worth electoral reform coordination alone.

The longer political battle begins with voting for Democratic Party candidates in the mid-terms

The Confederates have won this skirmish that is the battle over Kavanaugh's ascension to the U.S. Supreme Court.  Yes, I know Kavanaugh will be a fifth vote for cultural reaction. I know he will be a fifth vote for an anti-Federalist position that limits the ability of the U.S. government to respond to the needs of the many.  I know Kavanaugh will be a fifth vote that will only be "Federalist" in its worst incarnation, meaning against most of the Bill of Rights, starting with the Fourth Amendment and beyond.  Kavanaugh will also be a voice to neuter further on behalf of privilege in our nation the Fourteenth Amendment and restore Antebellum thinking more along the lines of John C. Calhoun than most of our Founders. 

But crying in our soup about this Confederate victory is counterproductive.  The key is for those who believe in rational discourse, who believe in scientific inquiry, who believe government has a balanced role to play with business and labor, who believe kindness must be part of a government policy to be effective and acceptable for a society to function, and who believe in many of the public policies a majority of Americans believe from sensible gun control to the belief that unions have a constructive role to play in society, to abortion, to taxes on richer folks and corporations, medical care, etc., to join together, and make sure we all vote for Democratic Party candidates nearly up and down the line.  Frankly, I cannot think of any State in our nation where that is not true today, though perhaps someone in some single State may enlighten me about one Republican Party candidate. For me, in New Mexico, and I know California and New Jersey, there is every reason to vote for Democratic Party candidates up and down the line in Federal and State offices, and probably even in local County and Municipal offices.* 

I have been saying all year in various forms, and now wish to say directly, we need an Argument Among the Rational.  And that Argument will only come after both corporate Democrats and progressive Democrats come together and vote for Democratic Party candidates up and down the ballot line.  That Argument Among the Rational only comes after corporate Democrats and progressive Democrats join together to get those in the natural constituencies who are not prone to voting in mid-term elections to vote this time in this mid-term. The longer game truly begins with Democratic Party victories in the mid-terms.  From there, we who are seen as progressive can--and will!--argue for the policies the majority of Americans support, and we can have the debate over whether the Democratic Party restores its New Deal values or sticks to its corporate Democratic Party values.  What I have always said about the Clintons, Biden, Obama, etc. is they are each very smart, they recognize the importance of government functioning in the context of public-policy making, and they are "adults in the room" when having a dialogue about public policy choices.  We do not, as we do with Republicans, have to argue First Principles and have to navigate through obvious racist and sexist tropes which get in the way of rational policy dialogue.   

What has changed, as we move forward in this first step--and this is a good thing for progressives--is social media.  Social media has allowed progressives a voice in the discussion that was denied and continues to be denied in most corporate-owned media.  Before social media, progressives were penned into small gatherings of people which garnered no media attention, or individually, we were stuck yelling at the television or in our cars yelling at the radio.  When I read people telling people like me not to argue on Facebook, I say, where else am I going to argue where people may read what I have to say and think about public policy issues?  It is not like the NY Times thinks me worthy, yet I know if I was in a room with Dowd, Blow, and Krugman, and with others watching, they would realize very quickly I know what I am talking about and am, again, someone who should also be "in the room." There are many, many more like me...and you. 

But back to the point we need to recognize in this moment of a Confederate skirmish victory with Kavanaugh.  If we are going to protest in the streets about this horrid development, then it must be explicitly stated by leaders and speakers in that protest that our most effective response we can make is to register people to vote, particularly in these last few days where people may still register, and to say to those registered; make sure we all get out and vote for Democratic Party candidates up and down the ballot line.  We must not be misled into arguments over "good" and "bad" Democrats for the next five weeks.  It remains true that "bad" Democrats exist, and we can even argue about how "bad" and whether someone you think is "bad" I think is "good."  I get that.  However, it is vital, right now, to elect Democrats, for then maybe even corporate media will notice that it is in the Democratic Party where one may find rational and important policy debates.  The progressives and corporate Dems can each pull out our rhetorical swords after this election.  Now, however, is not a time for us to go at each other, and delegitimize each other's status when we all have agreed the Republican policies, which Republicans in Congress have pushed onto an ignorant carnival barker like Trump, are deeply harmful to our nation and our planet.  I must also tell my lefty friends Hillary Clinton would have appointed a Garland, not a Kavanaugh, and there is a substantive difference.   But what we all have to remember most of all:  Trump is merely the symptom. The  Republican Party leadership in national and state political offices are the cause.  Trump follows their leads and does their bidding.  They love the diversions he causes with his Twitter rants.  

Right now, we face an environmental crisis that continues to become more and more difficult to contain.  Wages remain stagnant in an economy that is considered "heated up" when measured in the usual economic metrics. Millions continue to suffer the painful choice of foregoing medical treatment or eating.  Public schools continue to be underfunded, public teachers overworked, while under appreciated, and students are over tested, made to take loans they should not take at the early springs of their lives, and then are forced into jobs they hate to pay off those loans.  And people are taught in corporate media "news" a "crime-crime-crime" narrative and a narrative that favors yelling over discourse, which influences us to fear each other rather than recognize the need for human and planetary creature communion.  

We may, and I repeat, may only begin to untangle what has gone on for the past fifty years by embracing one more time what I know has not worked well in the past, which is voting Democratic Party up and down the line. But I see no other choice than taking this first step in the face of a Republican Party which, as even George Will--goddamn it, even George Will!--has recognized, has become a destructive force which threatens the most basic sense of unity we need as Americans to promote the policies a majority of us tell pollsters we believe. There is a difference now between even the Reaganite and Goldwaterite Republicans of long before and those Republicans currently holding office.  It is a difference about basic governing.  It is a difference about the level of cruelty one will tolerate and promote.  And that difference, in this moment, is worth recognizing and moving to stop.  Arguing over Bernie v. Clinton is not only not helpful. It is in fact a disruption and diversion which is totally wrong for this moment.  It is time to stand tall and together.

Angry about Kavanaugh?  Good. Then tell everyone you and I know to vote for Democratic Party candidates up and down the ballot.  For the Kavanaugh fight just ending represents only the tip of an iceberg that continues to hurtle toward our nation.  Stopping Republican officer holders from continuing to hold office or getting into office remains the first step toward sanity.  It is not enough, and taking this step may bring its own issues.  But right now, this is a step we must take as Americans.

* If, however, you live in a district where there are third party candidates, and the Democratic Party candidate in your Congressional district or a Statewide race (gubernatorial and down the ticket) is down by twenty points or more in polling data--and most importantly, it looks as if polling data shows it will stay that way--then by all means, explore third party candidates to coalesce with other activists.  But let's remember, we are talking five weeks, and it is vital for the Democratic Party to control Congress and more Statehouses.  In any congressional and gubernatorial race in which appears to be somewhat close, we cannot discount more voters voting than in the previous several mid-terms, and higher turnout most often supports Democratic Party candidates.  It is why the Republicans have worked so hard to suppress voting.  They know what the corporate Democrats rarely articulate and act on.  That means unity must be maintained through the election.  Again, after the election, the true policy battle begins, with progressives standing tall against corporate Democrats.  

Right wing American Stalinism in full view

Right wingers have gone full American Stalinist. I saw a right winger on my FB page who posted a photo of a car with bullet holes, saying that Dr. Ford's story had more holes than the car.

The thing to me is the lies BK has told about what he was doing and not doing during the time he was in high school and college. He has lied about the extent of his drinking and partying. He has lied about the meaning of phrases used in his year book and the people mentioned in his yearbook. Usually, when confronted in a courtroom with a person who lies, there is a jury instruction that says, if you find someone willfully lied about something, you are entitled to reject all of their testimony. You don't have to, but you can.

So when people tell me, Oh Ford can't prove her case because there are only her, BK, and BK's friend, and those two guys deny it, I laugh and say, Oh yes, a jury can easily find them responsible. They are the ones who hid from the FBI investigation--and for reasons which are fairly clear in terms of corruption--as the FBI decided to only go on mostly poor Senate questioning and not even bother to interview and cross examine Ford, Judge and BK, and not talk to several other witnesses who could have contradicted things BK was saying. 

So often in a sexual assault case, it is a he said/she said. This is why careful cross examination is performed, and lawyers on both sides look for circumstantial evidence, and look for lying about matters that would be considered relevant to the circumstances and habits of people.

BK himself showed, quite shocking to me, that his word is not to be trusted by the lies he has clearly told about his late teens and early to mid 20s. I don't even understand why he did this to himself...unless he felt that if he admitted to such behaviors, people would wonder if he did it. So then he decided to lie, and now we wonder, more correctly, whether he is lying too about that evening at the party with the then younger Dr. Ford--a woman who went into psychology and issues of sexual and other traumas in large part because of what she has said happened to her. His lying is a form of a cover up, and we know what people have said since the time of Nixon about cover ups.

Yes, right wingers. Just keep telling yourself Dr. Ford's story is really so incredible. And people studying Europe and America in the 1930s wonder how our political views can possibly lead us to ridiculous and horrid places. I think of US Communist Party members in the 1930s who had to twist and turn with every party line change because it was supposedly necessary to "protect the Revolution" and its leader, Stalin, "the Man of Steel" they often called him, as that is most familiar to sensibilities I myself may have had had I lived in that decade. This is what has happened to right wingers and their support for the current Republican Party and Trump. And we who have been so critical of the Democratic Party for its own set of corrupt leaders--in part because I never want to be a mindless "party man"--wonder where that is for the Republicans. If Collins, Murkowski, Flake, etc. all end up voting for BK to the US Supreme Court, I think even corporate media will finally stop giving them a term they never, ever deserved: "moderate."

There is nothing moderate about voting for BK at this point. Nothing.