We started, as we always do, in the classrooms. For Sunday School, I sat in on the panel discussion with George and the gang on This Week, where the discussion centered on the shooting at the Buffalo grocery store, and the larger conversation it should generate.
Donna Brazile pointed out that the conversation needs to be held outside the context of politics.
We need to have a conversation that doesn't go about the next election. It's just like on abortion. People call me, what do you think about Democrats and abortion? I said, before I was a Democrat, I was a human being, and why not talk about that and not just the next election? No, we need more than politicians to have this conversation.
Julie Pace of the Associated Press talked about unity, noting
- it's great to think about the prospect of a 2024 campaign that is focused around unity in this country, but, I think, the reality is that we will have some very powerful forces, potentially the former president who doesn't really speak that language and has enormous support from within the Republican Party. So, I think there's a long way to go before we get to that place where we might really have that national conversation that is more focused on unity.
She's right, don't you think?
For your Extra Credit, I sat in with the panel and What's-his-name in the Meet the Press classroom. Al Cardenas, a GOP strategist, talked about the lack of leadership on the right, people who could - or would - call out the hate.
Listen, there used to be political parties...there used to be serious politicians who would step up and speak out against these kinds of things. When David Duke ran for office, hey, I spoke out as party chairman. Others did. It was well known that he was an individual on his own, not part of a family. Now, it's to the contrary. People keep silent, and that silence is interpreted in ways that are not healthy. I'll tell you this. I'm frustrated in America that we're so incapable of doing things.
He thought, after George Floyd was killed and we had all the demonstrations, things would change. He thought the same after Parkland, and the Pulse nightclub shootings.
But when you look at this, the frustration in America has to do with the fact that horrific things are happening, government's not doing anything, and political leaders are not doing anything. And that's what the calamity is.
Elsewhere in the discussion, Matt Bai (Washington Post) addressed the 1st Amendment issues around hate speech.
Bai, who said he's "as close to a free speech absolutist as you're probably going to find," believes that "free speech is threatened in a lot of corners of society," but that speech "demands leadership."
When you have a society that is free, you also have to have a society with leaders who stand up for morality and for the right instincts in the culture so that you don't take things that are on the margins of the society, as you say, and bring them into the mainstream and legitimize them. We have failed on that count. And we continue to fail. And these are the consequences.
And, it's hard to disagree with him, too, isn't it?
I offered a somewhat abbreviated Wondering on Wednesday entry, mostly because there were two Maine Coons demanding my attention, and, after a brief period of time where I tried to show them who was boss, I succumbed to their desires. The post ended up being mostly about Tuesday's primaries.
Dr. Oz, a guy once famous for being a cardiothoracic surgeon and now famous as a flip-flopping, Trump-endorsed, Columbia University-disaffiliated, quack medicine-promoting, Turkish presidential-election voting, non-resident Republican Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, is effectively tied in that race with another MAGAist. A recount is almost certain to occur, given the margin of separation between them, barring some kind of election fraud 0r random meddling with the mail-in ballots, or some such silliness.
There may be some interesting developments in that race this week - hold onto your hats. Also in that post, I did some wondering about Pennsylvania's well-documented problem with Rs behaving badly in elections, and I also wondered about this.
On that point, the former president said that Oz should declare himself victorious, without waiting for all the votes to be counted, because, "It makes it much harder for them to cheat with the ballots that they "just happen to find." And, he said, we should go to all paper ballots with same-day voting. I wonder if he's practicing his speech for November 2024?
On Thursday, my husband got a letter and a survey from Gov. Ron DeSantis, writing on behalf of the National Republican Committee, talking about how progressives and Joe Biden and the Liberal Media and Big Tech are trying to ruin our country. With a few edits, I created a new version of the letter, which I posted in Thursday's Random Thoughts
Please tell me and the leaders of America where you stand, right away. We need to build a National Movement of Patriots like you to put our Country back on track.
We need to rally Sane Americans across the country to stand up against the extremist Right-wing Nut Jobs, the angry mob that now dominates the Republican Party and pushes all of us aside for their own autocratic goals.
So please, tell me, are you on my side?
Are you on the side of sanity, standing with Americans who truly believe that we can be a Great America again?
Or are you on the side of the extremist Right-wing Nut Jobs in the Republican party, who are hell-bent on destroying our freedoms?
And, on Saturday, I posted a revised survey; that and the letter will be mailed to the Florida Man tomorrow. Here's a snippet of that.
SECTION THREE: Sane American Priorities
12.Do you favor having all people – the living breathing ones, and the bricks-and-mortar or web-only ones that most Sane Americans realize are not people too – pay their fair share of taxes to support our Great Country and promote our American ideals and values? ___
13. Do you support Sane American efforts that are reasonable, bipartisan, and aggressive, t0 fully address all the immigration issues we face? ___
14. Do you support Sane American efforts to stop spending on new programs until we first ensure existing programs for supporting Americans in their efforts at achieving their American Dream are accessible, working as designed, and not riddled with fraud? ___
Reading his letter and the survey, it's not hard to understand how people who don't pay attention, wo are apathetic, who think and vote as their told, fall for this stuff. The repetition, the fake importance assigned through tricks like bolding, underlining and italicizing the text, and staying away from saying anything concrete, other than "they" are "bad" and "we" are "good" - I get it, I do.
I just wish we could get to the unity part, and the putting-politics-second part that were discussed in George's classroom, and the leadership part they talked about with What's-his-name. To that end, I encourage all Sane Americans to pay attention, to get involved, to write their elected officials and demand action, demand they put country and citizens before their re-election goals, demand better.
We deserve better, we surely do. And, of course, you can send a
most generous contribution of $5,000, $2,900, $1,000, $500, $250, $100, $50, or even $35 to Veritable Pastiche. I promise you, this money will be put to good use immediately as we move ahead to bring more sanity to our Great Country!
Thank you.See you later for Sunday School.
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Thanks for sharing your thoughts!