People have wondered why I have spent 3 days mostly pushing back on this idea that "defund the police" is bad marketing.

The reason is, it's an example of this magic trick, the oldest trick in the book.

It's a competition between what I call compass statements. And it matters.

I'd like to speak the obvious necessary things about the Republican Party, the most central of which is that this is not an organization that is participating in democracy.

Rather, they are cynically utilizing our democracy's vulnerabilities.

The last two Republican Presidents to enter the White House did so without the popular vote.

The last Republican President to enter the White House with the popular vote did so in 1989.

Yet, when they win, they behave as though they have the mandate that comes with a landslide.

For example, they upend the healthcare program.

They give out trillions in corporate welfare.

They start torture programs.

They start surveillance programs.

They lie us into wars.

They gerrymander at every level they can. They deliberately disenfranchise. They make our elections so imbalanced they can get less votes than Democrats but win 60% of the seats.

They are not interested in democracy. They are not participating in a democracy.

When a Democrat actually does win the popular vote—by a lot—they behave as if they are a majority opposition.

They stall. They filibuster. They delay. They engage in deliberate sabotage to gain political advantage.

They are not participating in our democracy.

Yesterday was the deadliest in U.S. history, a situation created by Republican leadership, who continue to actively fight against any remedy, while our media covers the president's unlawful attempts to overturn an election as a "gambit"

I see the cause of our "political divide."

The idea astonishes, that there still exist opinion pieces suggesting those directly responsible for a rolling series of the deadliest days in U.S. history should face no consequence. The belief that a few people matter and the rest do not has never been more nakedly exposed.

Killing people because you want them dead is divisive.
Abandoning them to a virus when you could save them is divisive.
Making them die of cancer when you could give treatment is divisive.
Making them starve when you have food is divisive.

Yelling at the people doing it is not.

Lying is divisive.
Forcing people to live in your lie is divisive.
Convincing their friends and family that the lie is truth, until they no longer resemble themselves, is divisive.
Creating a media ecosystem to launder lies into truth is divisive.

Insisting on truth is not.

Corruption is divisive.
Profiting from your office is divisive
Breaking laws you still enforce upon others is divisive
Making law enforcement a profit center for the demolition of human lives is divisive

Seeking to punish corrupt actors and demolish corrupt institutions is not.

The Great American Forgetting Project starts today. They're going to simultaneously try to tell us the last four years were an aberration that is over, and that it never happened.

And it's natural to want to forget these awful years.

It's our moral duty not to.

Those who benefit from our country's malicious priorities will do everything they can now to get us to forget how incontrovertibly Trump exposed those priorities.

Many of us thought we were something better than we were, but now we know.

We've seen our nation's face.

And many among us knew the truth all along. Many of us always saw our nation unmasked, because they were the ones who suffered it.

They told us all along, and the rest of us didn't listen.

Now that they've been proven correct, we're going to be asked to not listen again.

We can't deny anymore, that there are people among us, everywhere, for whom no lie is so obvious they won't believe it, as long as they think it serves their ends.

They don't care about truth, and never did.

We should care about truth, and speak it plain.

This is us.

We've seen our national tolerance for open racism, for cruelty, for corruption, for false equivocation.

Not just the tolerance, but the enthusiasm.

Trump didn't create it. It was there. He exploited it.

We'll never become what we want to be if we don't admit what we are.

Republicans caused this to happen, because they wanted it to happen.

The president.
The Senators.
The Representatives.
And their voters.

An open show that they care about nothing but domination. That is their politics.

The American Fascist Party.

The gates were opened for them.

Later they were escorted out.

In between, they delivered their message. This space belongs to white supremacy, because this country belongs to white supremacy.

And now those who orchestrated it will pretend they had nothing to do with it.

"The worst of us are safer at their very worst than any of the rest of you are at your best."

That's the message. Republicans have delivered it for decades, last year most notably in their Covid policy.

They're very consistent to it.

The American Fascist Party.

If you belong to this party, and you aren't a white supremacist fascist, yes you are.

Yes. You are.

You just gave yourself an alternate reason to join. And you lend your support to the things an American Fascist Party does, which they do use, to deliver their promised atrocity.

The events of yesterday shocked everyone—with the exception of those who were pretending to be shocked.

But for millions of us, it wasn't a surprise. We've been watching what Republicans do and say.

An attempt to overthrow democracy was always the promise.

And still is.

I am reading seed catalogs in the morning sun. A thread. 🌻🥦🌽🍅🍆🥔🥒

Seed catalogs are good reading my friends. The best ones are little glimpse into possibilities emerging. Of course there's the possibility of your amazing next season garden. But also the possibility of change in the world.

Especially this is true for the companies with social missions, like worker-owned Johnny's or FEDCO. Both are more than 40 years old, part of the organic movement, the local food movement, and trusted providers of good seed and good advice in the northeast US.

Seed catalogs can be a connection to the past and to the future, especially the ones, like my favorites, that also encourage seed saving by offering open pollinated varieties, and tell the stories of some seeds origins.

They also reflect what's changing in the society. And there's a lot that is inspiring in my morning reading even before you get to the luscious tomatoes or the bright green peas and all the promises of the next growing season.

Editor asks me: Will you review That Pandemic Antho?

I say: Maybe. There are a lot of disabled writers in it, right?

Editor: ............

I say: Like, obviously?

Editor: ............

[After a while] Editor: Wouldn't it still be interesting if there were NOT a lot disabled writers in it? Your review could be about that?

Me: No. That's not interesting at all b/c my ideal audience is disabled writers & readers, so that's just like gross.

[I really did say "that's just gross" lol]

Editor: Lemme send you the TOC.

Me: Okay.

Meanwhile, I'm impatient so I just look up the antho b/c it's Big and Famous and Everywhere.

Here's what The Pandemic Anthology published by @AAKnopf looks like. Now remember: disabled people are the most affected by the pandemic, eg we die the most.

How many total poets? Ok I stopped counting at 100.

How many disabled poets? Oh boy. Are you ready.

1 radical disabled activist. Name spelled incorrectly in the TOC

1 not radical at all disabled writer. Most acceptable disabled writer to nondisabled literary establishment b/c this writer "doesn't make a big deal about it," as I have been told

I am reading and reviewing books of @SamHarrisOrg this December, with the extra time available after work. First book I read is following.

The book is written by the neo-atheist Sam Harris. I am a passionate sunni Muslim. I would like to learn and review some of his work, and judge them from my personal view based on Islamic theological perspective. It shall be interesting because as you would know, the neo-athiests

want to abolish religions altogether and suggest a world where things are based on science and logic. How is that coherent and how is it relavent? Let's see for ourselves. I would like to thank the local Muslim handles and atheist handles who actively participate in discussions.

I would advice everyone to stick to a more academic discussions and not to deviate the discussion with mockery of Islamic and atheistic beliefs.

This book talks about lying and it's ill effects on the individuals and at large on the society. In a nutshell here are some of the gists of the book. The book basically identified specific ways in which lying is detrimental and why we should avoid lying.

1. Yes, @FareedZakaria's new book, Ten lessons From a Post-Pandemic World argues we don't need a big or small gov- we need a GOOD one.

We don't have that now & that is bc for decades now, the GOP has intentionally hallowed it out. Stripping it of funding under the auspice that

2. the only goal should be small. And as it turns out- that was stupid. And now we have a dysfunctional, as @maddow says, "big, bad" gov. Something that has been "wasted, and rotted and ruined." And its been intentional. Its been murdered, with no thought for how people would

3. suffer for it. COVID just put that suffering in a streamlined spotlight. But as @FareedZakaria points out- its the cherry on top of a 40 year plan that Bannon termed the final "deconstruction of the administrative state." As with the decimation of the economic tools that had

4. allowed the world's 1st middle class to emerge & flourish before The Great Lie ushered in the greatest wealth transfer in history. Not only were Americans bamboozled into voting away their wage increases, their pensions, & their health care (at least till 2010)- they were also

5. tricked into pissing away their country's superiority- its claim to fame, its ability to puff its chest out & say "look over here, we have the best _____. " I had no idea when I was a kid that we were not, in fact, the greatest country on Earth- at least not if you care about

दोन वर्षांपूर्वी जेव्हा मी ‘लीन इन’ हे पुस्तक वाचले होते तेव्हा मला कधीच वाटले नव्हते की ह्या पुस्तकाचा माझ्यावर कायमचा परिणाम होईल.
“खरोखर समान जग असे आहे की जेथे महिलांनी आपले अर्धे देश आणि कंपन्या आणि पुरुषांनी अर्धी घरं चालवतील. “
- शेरिल सँडबर्ग.

अध्याय वाचताना मला जाणवलं की प्रत्येक महिला जिला तिच्या आवडीनिवडींशी कोणतीही तडजोड न करता स्वत: चे करियर बनवायचे आहे, तिच्यासाठी हा manifesto आहे. या वास्तववादी पुस्तकाची लेखिका शेरिल सँडबर्ग आहे. प्रामाणिक बोलं तर मी त्यावेळी तिचं नाव कधीच ऐकले नव्हते.

काही खुलासे करणारे तथ्य शोधल्यानंतर मी तिच्या संदर्भात अधिक माहितीसाठी थोडा इंटरनेट सर्फ केलं. हार्वर्डमधून इकॉनॉमिक्सची पदवी घेतली व पदवी पूर्ण झाल्यावर तिला कॉलेजमध्ये वुमन इन इकॉनॉमिक्स नावाची एक संस्था स्थापित केली. एका वर्षासाठी वर्ल्ड बँकेत काम केले आणि कुष्ठरोगास आळा

घालण्याच्या एका कार्यक्रमाअंतर्गत त्यांनी भारतातही प्रवास केला. नंतर हार्वर्ड येथे एमबीए केले आणि वर्षभर मॅककिन्से आणि कंपनीबरोबर काम केले. माझ्यासारख्या भारतीय महिलेसाठी, तिने आपल्या पुस्तकात लिहून दिलेल्या कामाच्या ठिकाणी महिलांच्या वागणुकीच्या साध्या साध्या निरीक्षणाद्वारे

निश्चितच एक आदर्श म्हणून काम केले. मला वैयक्तिकरित्या कळले की पुस्तकात नोंदवलेल्या बर्‍याच अज्ञात, नकळत वर्तन तथ्य सत्य आहेत. त्यापैकी काहींचा समावेश आहे की महिला ज्या प्रकल्पात काम करतात त्या कोणत्याही प्रकल्पात पुढाकार अर्थात initiative घेत नाहीत,