#politics

The Upside Down World ~ The Blog

Dec 11, 2019
4 min

Hate In a Time of Trump

In the last few years I’ve had numerous people confess to me that they were really struggling with hate towards Trump, his supporters, his enablers and the gang of conmen and criminals who have taken over our government. Given the behavior of these people, their open animosity, disdain and thinly veiled hatred for the rest of us and the harm being done to our government, our allies and some of the world’s most vulnerable people as the result of this administration, hatred is

Sep 5, 2017
2 min

Sadly, Being Nice Rarely Changes Things

While I’m usually pretty nice and well behaved here on my blog, it has happened a time or two in real life and on social media that I have been criticized for being too harsh, too dramatic and too provocative. The way I communicate has been called vulgar, bombastic, hateful, angry and divisive. More than one person has tried to plead with me (or shame me) to tone it down. Typically they claim that no one will listen to me because I’m alienating people. Clearly, I have not fou

Jan 24, 2017
2 min

Just How Out of Touch Are Trump and the Radical Right? Here’s the List

78% say Citizens United was a bad decision 63% would support raising the minimum wage to $15/hr 75% would support raising it to $12.50 82% support indexing the minimum wage to inflation 62% believe in debt free public college 46% believe public college should be free 79% support paid family and medical leave 58% support legalizing weed 63% oppose raising the age at which citizens can start collecting Social Security benefits 68% oppose privatizing Social Security 67% support

Jan 23, 2017
2 min

Your Simple Act of Resistance For the Day 1/23

We’re in a bit of a quandary here with Trump. He is giving every appearance of being a despot in the making. It’s possible, he’s just an idiot savant who is going to be one of our worst presidents and we’ll recover. And maybe our institutions are strong enough to withstand any attempt by him to step too far outside the lines. But after the last year in particular, that seems like a foolish thing to put our hopes in. Institutions haven’t been doing so well for quite some time

Jan 23, 2017
2 min

Trump Declares His Inauguration Day a “Day of Patriotic Devotion” #notajoke #notadrill

I’ve been arguing for months that it’s Trump’s intention to turn us into a Russian style oligarchy. So far, he’s done nothing to convince me otherwise. And now there’s this: Yes, that’s actually declaration, signed by Donald Trump, declaring the date of his inauguration to be “A Day of Patriotic Devotion”. Honestly. I don’t even know what to say, except this is not a drill. This is really happening. I believe that if we the American people, who still believe in our values, co

Jan 23, 2017
4 min

What’s the Point of Protesting? #womensmarch

shudder and wretch inducing inauguration, the incredibly successful Women’s March on Saturday was balm for a lot of our souls. A reminder that Trump does not have the support of the American people. Which is all well and fine, but what good does protesting actually do? Especially when the aims of the protest are so nebulous and ill defined? Even if we have the numbers, the bad guys have the power. Does all this marching and protesting actually matter? Are we just yelling to

Jan 20, 2017
1 min

Your Simple Act of Resistance 1/20

Use this website to look up your lawmaker’s phone numbers and program them into your phone. You’re much more likely to actually call them if you don’t have to look it up. You’re going to be needing it. According to former legislative staffers, phone calls are the most effective way for constituents to be heard. They have to answer the phones. At least for now. Ready, set, go! Get those numbers programmed! #politics #protest #doit #resistance #politicaladvocacy #currentevents

Jan 19, 2017
2 min

Do You Think They’d Let Me Pet Their Unicorns If I Asked?

Many Trump supporters literally voted for a person who exists only in their head. I first realized that there was something strange going on with Trump and his supporters during the primaries when a seemingly normal man I’m connected to on Facebook shared a Trump ad saying, “this is amazing! Wow. If everyone saw this, Trump would win in a landslide. Finally, someone who gets it.” (Or something like that, I’m working from memory.) So I watched the ad. All it was was Trump maki

Jan 18, 2017
6 min

Going High When They Go Low Isn’t How You Win; You Gotta Fight to Win

There’s an interesting interview with cognitive linguist George Lakoff going around in which he discussed this problem. His thesis, essentially, is that it’s not so much policy differences that make Liberals so unappealing to conservatives. It’s that Liberals have erroneous ideas about how to win people over while Republicans have it down to an art form. He argues, and has been arguing for decades now, that Republicans are masters of messaging and framing while Democrats pref

Jan 18, 2017
3 min

To All the Good, Decent People Supporting Donald Trump

Not everyone means the best. Not everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt. It’s not a majority of people who are terrible people. Not even close. But it’s not an insignificant number of people either. Those people are dangerous. They can and have destroyed individuals, families, organizations, communities and, when given enough power, entire countries. They do not care if they are an unpopular minority, if they can get their hands on some power, they are going to use it in

Jan 17, 2017
1 min

Oh, America, How Do I Love Thee?

It’s good to remember that one of the hallmarks of American character, going right back to the very beginning, has been that we tend to be uncooperative when we see fit. We enjoy a strong rule of law, but that’s never been one of the markers of our identity as Americans. Throwing tea into the harbor, running underground railroads and putting up speakeasies is more our style. So, in that grand tradition, and because you deserve a laugh, allow me to share with you the response

Jan 16, 2017
2 min

Is This the End Times Delusion?

I’m pretty sure Christian enthusiasm for Trump, where it exists, is the end times delusion the fundies have been trying to warn us was coming. For those of you who aren’t in the know, it’s a common teaching in some Christians circles that in the end times, there will be a delusion sent by God which causes people to call good evil and evil good. The term delusion comes from 2 Thessalonians 2:11-12 which says “For this reason, God will send them a powerful delusion so that they

Jan 16, 2017
1 min

Speaking of Special Snowflakes

#socialcommentary #funny #politics #history #meme #funnymeme #currentevents

Jan 16, 2017
5 min

Understanding the Radical Right

In any conflict, it’s important to keep up with what’s going on with the other side. But between social media and the extreme unpleasantness of dealing with the radical right, a lot of people are in a bubble where they aren’t hearing the conversations taking place among those who are on “the other side”. While I totally understand the impulse to cocoon and support it when necessary for peace of mind and mental health reasons, I do try to stay in contact with people who are on

Jan 15, 2017
2 min

This Makes No Sense to Me

There is this bizarre phenomena that I run into now and again where someone will respond to criticism of modern racism by pointing out that in the early to mid 20th century, the Democratic party, particularly in the south, was unabashedly racist and for a while even aligned itself with the Klan. Like I’ll bring up the fact that Trump was enthusiastically supported by white supremacists and someone will say, “the Democrats are the real racists. They were the ones who passed al

Jan 14, 2017
2 min

Quick Tips for Evaluating a New Story

Since clearly a lot of people are struggling to differentiate between reliable news and bullshit, let’s talk about something called a primary source. You can think of a primary source as original documentation. So if I’m studying Abraham Lincoln’s relationship with Mary Todd, letters between them would be a primary source. A book written about their relationship which quotes those letters would be considered a secondary source. The further removed from the original documentat

Jan 14, 2017
4 min

Trump’s Responsibility to Avoid the Appearance of All Kinds of Evil

Years ago, I looked out the window and saw my 12-year-old chasing her 6-year-old sister and swinging a baseball bat at her while she rode away on her bike. I saw that they were both laughing which clued me in to the fact that they were playing, but obviously, it was a pretty alarming scene. So I called the 12-year-old over to tell her to stop and demand to know what the hell she thought she was doing. She came over and assured me that they were just playing and she was being

Jan 13, 2017
2 min

Why Discussion and Reasoning Have Failed

Want to know why communicating with people on the other side has become so difficult? Well, everyone focuses on the outrageous things Rush Limbaugh says, but if you listen to his show, you can see that underneath all the nonsense, what he’s doing is teaching people the dirty tricks of rhetoric and debate. He’s been showing his listeners how to trip people up with manufactured double binds, sentences crafted to allow you to believe something other than what is being communicat

Jan 13, 2017
2 min

Your Simple Act of Resistance for the Day – Friday, January 13th

Obviously there are an overwhelming number of unacceptable things going on, but I’m going to be trying to offer near daily, simple instructions for one act of protest/resistance that will take very little of your time. Today’s target is Marco Rubio. Sen. Rubio has indicated some reluctance to approve Trump’s nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson. Tillerson is a long time oil executive who has been given awardsby the Russian government. Further, during hearings on his

Jan 12, 2017
3 min

A Few Facts About That Press Conference Yesterday

As you have probably heard, Trump gave a press conference yesterday. Which is actually a very normal thing for presidents to do. Except Trump doesn’t engage in normal behavior. His conflict with a CNN reporter where he refused to take a question because he claimed that CNN is “fake news” got most of the headlines. Especially since he went straight from that to taking a question from a Breibart reporter. Just in case anyone was under the impression that Trump was actually conc