Tuesday, August 22, 2017

Mueller's closing in--time for a "campaign" rally! What better way to bankrupt the Secret Service?

24 August 2017 update:

Walp, friends, I must be doing something right--some script kiddie has attacked le blawg, making it impossible to load the home page with Tuesday's full post on it. I've stripped out everything but my essay and a few little goodies I'm hoping will sneak through the jamming. Then, when this post goes to archive, I'll pop the rest of the content back in because the archives still seem to be working.

It's ironic that they attacked a post featuring an essay on unity....

But there it is, eh? They can't attack our ideas on substance, so all they can do is try to shut the dialog down.

I hope they read the essay and that it does them some good. I don't have to tell my fellow Resisters that the very people supporting the oligarchs are the biggest victims of the oligarchs they worship.

And I'm fighting just as hard for them to have a future as I am for my dad to have one.

- Dot Calm's shadow

*****
News flash, GOP--
tRUmp doesn't like you.
When he consolidates power,
your rich donors
won't need you any more.
Then you'll be
in the same situation
as the rest of us--
fucked.
Aren't you glad
you jumped through your own assholes
to install your boi tRUmp?
*****

Greetings, fellow Dot Calm Readers, Freedom Fighters, and Truth Crusaders!

Last time, I wrote about starting a grass-roots "exchange program" to start educating white supremacists and nazis so we can integrate them back into civil society.

In that essay, I mentioned listening to their concerns.

Today, I'm linking to an essay by a tRUmp supporter with a bad case of voter's remorse. The concerns he expresses are not at all unreasonable coming from a consumer of conservative media. I have a friend--a sane, rational, reasonably educated average American, as opposed to my wackadoodle Tea party Christian friend--who watches FOX News daily and who, in the run-up to the 2016 election, expressed the same exact concerns with the same almost giddy enthusiasm for tRUmp as a solution. While we on the left may understand and prioritize things somewhat differently, we can't deny the flaws in the system that tRUmp voters are concerned over.

I'm not at all trying to equate these tRUmp voters with nazis and white nationalists--I'm just trying to give us all some context. A starting point, if you will, and a nod that we can only interact with the people we come into contact with. Depending on where you live and the circles you travel in, you may be more likely to meet these everyday tRUmp supporters rather than the radicals I mentioned last week.

But I think the same approach should work for both subsets of Republicans, provided they're willing to talk and to listen.

Acknowledging tRUmp voters' concerns, reading vetted media from both sides of the aisle to gain insight into how both sides think, and starting discussions with them regarding how to solve these problems is the first step toward starting the "exchange program."

Following Anthony Magnabosco's "Street Epistemology" approach (for which there is an app and several fine YouTube videos) can help all of us investigate others' beliefs civilly, without confronting or trying to "correct" them. In short, if the person you are reaching out to is at least rational enough and intellectually honest enough to admit that he or she isn't perfect and may be wrong about something (unlike my wackadoodle Tea Party Christian friend), you've got something to work with--a foothold from which you can both grow, learn, and develop empathy for each other from understanding each other.

Another key piece, as Randi Rhodes pointed out when coaching Fernand Armandi in the video below, is to look for common ground wherever we can find it, to take on the discussion piecemeal rather than taking on the whole ideology all at once, and to praise and encourage these folks when they do find the courage, honesty, and integrity to admit that they made a mistake when they voted for tRUmp.

I know, I know--it's so tempting to want to flail at them and take out our frustrations on them. After all, they caused this disaster! But think about it: they didn't create this disaster alone, and what good would yelling and screaming at them actually do? Here is someone confessing, baring his or her soul, being vulnerable...that's already difficult enough, especially for men in our macho admit-no-fault culture. So, if we're wise, we'll offer some frankly well-deserved praise: it takes a big person to admit fault, especially out loud. That is admirable! And by holding that space and valuing it, we're already establishing common ground and amity with the very people we need to reach out to.

So, as we continue to pummel our elected officials mercilessly--they deserve it as the knowing purveyors of the bad ideas victimizing our peers on the right--and as we demand accountability from them and our media, let's put on our pith helmets and start the journey to take our country back from the sick, sad oligarchs. Let's start the process of embracing and healing our peers who stand the most to lose from right-wing ideology. Let's start small and look for those teaching moments and capitalize on them whenever we find them.

Let's help them discover that it's the oligarchs who are the enemy--the ones who've stolen our decent jobs, our environment, our American dream, our future--not the vulnerable among us whom they've been taught to use as a collective whipping boy.

Who's with me?

- Dot Calm's shadow

(If you value my work, please consider supporting me on Patreon.)
  
*****
We've proved there is no Illuminati
-- Penn Jillette,
slamming the "secret society" conspiracy theory
that Obama would never leave office 
debunked by tRUmp's inauguration
*****
 
M00bies

Well, just one m00bie today because I just can't resist...oh ho Ho HO--this is so funny it almost hurts!
 
***** 
tRUmp berated Mitch McConnell
for refusing to "protect him"
from the Russia investigations.
Doncha think that
INNOCENCE
would have been
ENOUGH PROTECTION?
***** 
 
Well, friends, that's it for today. Until we meet again, don't forget to RESIST with Resistbot:

text "Resist" to 50409

Hope to see you with my usual flair next time! Until then, pour yourself a Fireball and have yourself some chocolate on me--and never forget that I lurves ya madleh!

- Dot Calm's shadow