hello Ruth, in your opinion, do you think me sending my two state Senators this YouTube video was a good idea to light a fire under them?
I am a volunteer grassroots activist and I see how many interesting actors Ezra has interviewed about what’s going on with our democracy. Now he recorded the YouTube:
I am really grateful to be in a Blue State. I am hearing about the Soft Blue State Secession, and already last summer I did suggest to my book club that Blue States need to collectively save themselves. I guess the AGs and governors are having the same idea. Let us see where this leads.
Living in MA, I'm encouraged by what my state's governor and AG are doing. At the back of my mind is the knowledge that most Republican-run ("red") states receive more from the federal government than they pay in taxes, and that doesn't include the benefits those states receive from, e.g., the military bases located there.
Susanna, In Nazi Germany some people realized that being on the right side was not necessarily following the laws in an illegal regime. We must recognize this too. We cannot always follow what our corrupt SCOTUS has ruled, because they are not following the law, and their rulings are quite immoral.
Sherri, What I am saying is that when the law is about imprisoning and exterminating innocent people you need to resist. There may be other unethical things to resist as well. My political book club is read Project 2025 last summer and fall, and when Trump was elected I knew what to expect to some degree, not Musk and DOGE, but the other stuff is following the script.
Here is what I wrote in November and still seems relevant. "A 'Plan B' for Catastrophe" is about figuring out your read line for personal safety.
Sherri, I doubt I will get to the zoo this time around, but when I do I will greet the guinea pigs. I am packing up to sell our house.
I used to take my students to the zoo for a picnic at the end of the school year and I would bring along some big watermelons and a knife and sate the children with watermelon when we ate lunch. A great time was had by all.
Before that I taught near the zoo and would walk there once a week in the winter months as we studied animals. We would also read about zoo enclosures around the world, and at the end of the unit my fourth graders would research an animal and design an enclosure for them based on their needs and what we knew about good zoo practice.
Now I am spending more time at zoos and Free time parks in Germany where I mostly live. One of our favorite Free time Park has an area for gerbils, and another for guinea pigs, and another for rabbits. Farther into the park there is an area with pigs, goats, and chickens that you can walk amongst. One can buy some food to feed them as well. It is pretty cool.
9/11 was the American version of the Reichstag fire of 1933, and the assassination of Sergei Kirov by a likely jealous husband in 1934 came to mind after the killing of Charlie Kirk. The only comfort I have is that Trump is a television performer without the intelligence or cunning of a Hitler or a Stalin.
The Trump Regime is working hard to turn the latest assassination into their Reichstag Fire event. I don’t know if this was a setup assassination, a political assassination, or one where there may have been personal honor reasons for the killing. MAGA is opaque to the fact that many of the recent political killings and assaults have been against Democrats, other than using the events to mock Democrats or belittle the victims. There has also never been an official Government report about the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania in 2024 where he was “wounded” in the right ear by a young registered republican. Will we get a reliable report on this very latest assassination, especially if the perpetrator or the ‘story’ doesn’t fit the needs of Trump and MAGA. Be ready for the shoehorning of the “facts” to fit the needs of the Right. One wonders, will National Guard and Military units now invade the violent state of Utah?
Bernie: Political violence in fact is political cowardice. It means that you cannot convince people of the correctness of your ideas and you have to impose them through force.
The suspect reportedly turned himself in accompanied by his father, a police officer & a family minister...so if he's not a trans lefty radical, college must have brainwashed him? Makes perfect sense to MAGA.
I keep reading and hearing that Mr. Robinson is not co-operating! It is not his obligation to co-operate. Does Tyler Robinson have a good lawyer? I haven't seen or heard a peep about that. We know the difficult situation young people and males in particular are having today. Have we done anything to significantly reduce the risks of the internet to all people and particularly young people?
In their precarious situation a significant number of people get sucked into the dark hole of the internet. Some get sucked into the out in the open brainwashing by people like Trump - and others.
hello Ruth, in your opinion, do you think me sending my two state Senators this YouTube video was a good idea to light a fire under them?
I am a volunteer grassroots activist and I see how many interesting actors Ezra has interviewed about what’s going on with our democracy. Now he recorded the YouTube:
https://youtu.be/W3-0SpkF-V0?si=mftYvCYDWKLw-V3K
🔥 Stop Acting Like This is Normal | Democrats are Losing 🔥
spread the word after watching this short 18.5 minute video. urgent action
…
YouTube Comments
“Democrats have had 6 months to come up with a plan…if the plan is still to do nothing, and hope for the best, then Democrats need new leaders”. @JSGF
“This is hands-down the best political analysis essay I have listened to in recent times.”. @c738
“Thank you for finally saying it. Shut it down. Fight the fight.”. @F
thank you, and we really like your Live Q&A zoom meetings
I am really grateful to be in a Blue State. I am hearing about the Soft Blue State Secession, and already last summer I did suggest to my book club that Blue States need to collectively save themselves. I guess the AGs and governors are having the same idea. Let us see where this leads.
Living in MA, I'm encouraged by what my state's governor and AG are doing. At the back of my mind is the knowledge that most Republican-run ("red") states receive more from the federal government than they pay in taxes, and that doesn't include the benefits those states receive from, e.g., the military bases located there.
Susanna, In Nazi Germany some people realized that being on the right side was not necessarily following the laws in an illegal regime. We must recognize this too. We cannot always follow what our corrupt SCOTUS has ruled, because they are not following the law, and their rulings are quite immoral.
Sherri, What I am saying is that when the law is about imprisoning and exterminating innocent people you need to resist. There may be other unethical things to resist as well. My political book club is read Project 2025 last summer and fall, and when Trump was elected I knew what to expect to some degree, not Musk and DOGE, but the other stuff is following the script.
Here is what I wrote in November and still seems relevant. "A 'Plan B' for Catastrophe" is about figuring out your read line for personal safety.
https://lindaweide.substack.com/p/a-plan-b-for-catastrophe?r=f0qfn
I am currently in Chicago and glad that our governor's strong stance seems to have kept Trump from sending the National Guard illegally to our city.
Sherri, I doubt I will get to the zoo this time around, but when I do I will greet the guinea pigs. I am packing up to sell our house.
I used to take my students to the zoo for a picnic at the end of the school year and I would bring along some big watermelons and a knife and sate the children with watermelon when we ate lunch. A great time was had by all.
Before that I taught near the zoo and would walk there once a week in the winter months as we studied animals. We would also read about zoo enclosures around the world, and at the end of the unit my fourth graders would research an animal and design an enclosure for them based on their needs and what we knew about good zoo practice.
Now I am spending more time at zoos and Free time parks in Germany where I mostly live. One of our favorite Free time Park has an area for gerbils, and another for guinea pigs, and another for rabbits. Farther into the park there is an area with pigs, goats, and chickens that you can walk amongst. One can buy some food to feed them as well. It is pretty cool.
This is a video of that park.
https://youtu.be/1VxncvspCmA?si=9yFj1wM9SmUMlvcc
9/11 was the American version of the Reichstag fire of 1933, and the assassination of Sergei Kirov by a likely jealous husband in 1934 came to mind after the killing of Charlie Kirk. The only comfort I have is that Trump is a television performer without the intelligence or cunning of a Hitler or a Stalin.
The Trump Regime is working hard to turn the latest assassination into their Reichstag Fire event. I don’t know if this was a setup assassination, a political assassination, or one where there may have been personal honor reasons for the killing. MAGA is opaque to the fact that many of the recent political killings and assaults have been against Democrats, other than using the events to mock Democrats or belittle the victims. There has also never been an official Government report about the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania in 2024 where he was “wounded” in the right ear by a young registered republican. Will we get a reliable report on this very latest assassination, especially if the perpetrator or the ‘story’ doesn’t fit the needs of Trump and MAGA. Be ready for the shoehorning of the “facts” to fit the needs of the Right. One wonders, will National Guard and Military units now invade the violent state of Utah?
Thanks - your insight is appreciated. Hope your Mom’s benefits have been restored.
💔loss of manpower, expertise, experience & funding in our safety net… and… all DJT impacted agencies.
Bernie: Political violence in fact is political cowardice. It means that you cannot convince people of the correctness of your ideas and you have to impose them through force.
Meanwhile the right declares "war" because...inciting violence is core to the cult. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7otv-HjT44
The suspect reportedly turned himself in accompanied by his father, a police officer & a family minister...so if he's not a trans lefty radical, college must have brainwashed him? Makes perfect sense to MAGA.
THE THIRD GAZE
Restoring Sight in the Age of Spectacle
“To witness is not to watch—it is to see what the world tries to
forget.”
— In the spirit of Elie Wiesel
The Third Gaze is the disciplined act of perception
that neither flatters nor recoils, but sees what is, honors what endures, and
restores the right relation between soul and symbol through quiet recognition.
Not the
First Gaze—which
names, claims, or categorizes (the gaze of the colonizer, the advertiser,
the voyeur).
Not the
Second Gaze—which
internalizes, reacts, or resists (the gaze of the objectified, the rebel,
the mirror).
But the
Third Gaze—which
ruptures the loop, restores presence, and invites communion. It is the
gaze of the witness, the poet, the ritualist.
To stand apart as a witness is to refuse the comfort
of belonging and the thrill of opposition. It means stepping outside the
binary—neither cheering nor condemning—but holding the tension, the silence,
the gaze. That’s hard because:
We crave
alignment—to be
seen, affirmed, echoed. Witnessing asks us to forgo applause and endure
misunderstanding.
We fear
isolation—the
witness is often mistaken for passive, aloof, or complicit. But true
witnessing is active, moral, and deeply engaged.
We resist
stillness—in a
culture of reaction and spectacle, stillness feels like surrender. But the
witness knows it is the ground of truth.
We are
trained to perform—to
curate, to signal, to brand. Witnessing demands we unmask, unmarket, and
simply behold.
"A rush of forms shivers our
name." We stand at the terrible threshold to behold, separate but yet
fully immersed……
This is the Third Gaze
Chomsky’s manufactured consent comes to mind. I just wrote about this a bit and more to come:
From 9/11 to the Charlie Kirk Assassination
The dangers of (right-wing) knee-jerk reflexes and pre-baked war plans
https://sunmoonlight.substack.com/p/from-911-to-the-charlie-kirk-assassination
Chomsky’s manufactured consent comes to mind. I just wrote about this a bit and more to come:
From 9/11 to the Charlie Kirk Assassination
The dangers of (right-wing) knee-jerk reflexes and pre-baked war plans
https://sunmoonlight.substack.com/p/from-911-to-the-charlie-kirk-assassination
I keep reading and hearing that Mr. Robinson is not co-operating! It is not his obligation to co-operate. Does Tyler Robinson have a good lawyer? I haven't seen or heard a peep about that. We know the difficult situation young people and males in particular are having today. Have we done anything to significantly reduce the risks of the internet to all people and particularly young people?
In their precarious situation a significant number of people get sucked into the dark hole of the internet. Some get sucked into the out in the open brainwashing by people like Trump - and others.