All things political, great and small.
I’m sure this only scratches the surface because it only tracks incidents of police violence that are reported on Twitter but I really appreciate folks (including Durham lawyer Greg Doucette) for putting this together. See also The Guardian‘s site The Counted, which they created to track police killings in 2015 because no-one else was even …
Continue reading "Mapping police brutality"In 2017, I stopped talking about the parallels to 1930s Germany (when fascists were gradually coming into power) because people tuned me out and acted like I was hysterical. Now here we are. It sucks being right when no-one listens.
Continue reading "I hate being right"
I cannot understand people’s insistence on believing that Republicans are failing because they are incompetent. They are extremely strategic, they just don’t have any intrinsic morality. They will grab all the money and power within reach, and they’ll believe it was right if they don’t get caught. Even in the areas where they simply lack …
Continue reading "It’s not incompetence"
After screaming into the void for weeks on Twitter about the desperate need for massive testing and rapid social isolation, we are now living that quarantine life. Like many parents I am trying not to terrify my child (and myself), but unlike many parents I will not sugarcoat things. Especially after spending decades talking about …
Continue reading "Quarantine for kids"
My friends who like Bernie Sanders keep telling me that he disavows the bros and toxicity that his supporters are known for. Then yesterday the Sanders campaign proudly tweeted the endorsement of an absolutely hateful scumbag, Joe Rogan.
It’s one thing to accept an endorsement from someone you don’t entirely agree with, it’s entirely another to EMBRACE AND HIGHLIGHT it as a sign of the kind of support you have. Especially given the deficit of trust Sanders already has, this sends a clear message to marginalized people that we will be thrown under the bus at the first opportunity to get some sexist, homophobic white nationalists on board.
Continue reading "Scumbags for Sanders?"
I have the same shirt as 86-year-old Florence Rice in this photo. But thanks to quite a bit of privilege in my life, I don’t have the same story. Florence Rice, 86 (at the time the photo was taken), was raised in the foster care system in NYC. She saw her mother only a handful …
Continue reading "I had an abortion. I also have white privilege."The more I think about Congresswoman Katie Hill resigning the more pissed off I get. The fact is she could have stayed in Congress and served her district while admitting and atoning for her mistakes (like so many Republicans have made), except that her ex-husband is punishing her by illegally sharing private files. It’s this …
Continue reading "Congressional Slut Shaming"
I was 17 and looking forward to escaping high school and going to college. I was independent, an only child raised by busy single parents with their own social lives. I was intelligent, but insecure. I used sex as a way to get affection and feel wanted. I dropped by an older friend’s house one …
Continue reading "A Mom’s Abortion Story"
In There’s Nothing Virtuous About Finding Common Ground, Tayari Jones asks “When we revisit our shameful past, ask yourself, Where was the middle? Rather than chattel slavery, perhaps we could agree on a nice program of indentured servitude? “ Or maybe we can “compromise” on abortion and just let rich people get them? Yeah, NO. As …
Continue reading "Halfway between moral and immoral = nowhere"
1. Stoke paranoia. Deprive, dehumanize, physically weaken, and isolate people.
2. Cause/provoke crisis. (Or at minimum, ensure government is not prepared to handle inevitable crisis.)
3. Justify consolidation of power and suspension of human rights, civil society, democracy.