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ppdoddy · 5 years ago

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Republicanism

The attached proposed op/ed article is hereby submitted to every print media organisation in Britian and Ireland with a view to getting it published. No fee is sought. ===== Republicanism. A Normative Definition. "If you ask what kind of a man he was, he answers that he lived content with his own small fortune. Bred a scholar, he made his learning subservient only to the cause of truth". (Epitaph of John Locke). After all the recent talk of reclaiming 'republicanism' for the Irish people, I argue that we must first describe what we mean by that term before we can have any meaningful insight into what in fact we are 'reclaiming.' Traditionally, in an Irish context, 'republicanism' has been identified with opposition to 'monarchy,' but it is more. The word comes from the Latin term 'res publica' meaning 'things public' or alternatively 'public affairs.' Plato's 'Republic' is something of a misnomer in that the original title ' politeia' more closely relates to the concept of politics or citizenship. Likewise Cicero's 'De republica' is not taken to accord to any modern definition of republicanism although he did say that 'some sort of free-state' is the necessary condition of a republic. The modern idea of the Republic (in the sense that is widely understood) is drawn from ancient Greece and Rome but it was truly created during the Renaissance when scholars developed what is known as 'classical republicanism'. Classical republicanism rejected monarchism in favour of 'rule by the people' and writers like Machiavelli proposed various versions of such a system of government. However, during the Enlightenment men like John Henry, Thomas Paine and John Locke paved the way for a new understanding of republicanism that ultimately came to fruition in Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence in 1776. Familiar from before was Jefferson's call that 'governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.' However, freely elected governments could still lead to the 'tyranny of the majority' where democracy was "nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine." Thus, according to Jefferson, democracy was a necessary but not sufficient factor for republicanism. Necessary too was the concept that each individual (however in the minority) had 'certain inalienable rights.' In order to prevent pure democracy endangering individual rights therefore, Jefferson advocated a republic where individual freedom was protected from democratic rule by a set of laws enacted in a Constitution. Expanding on the concept of the 'sovereignty of the people' Jefferson wrote that the mother principle of republicanism was therefore that 'governments are republican only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.' Citizens likewise had responsibilities. Implicit here is the idea of active citizenship which stresses the moral duty of 'republicans' to act in the interests of the republic or to be 'patriotic.' The opposite of patriotism consists of the corruption often referred to by such classical republican thinkers as Aristotle and Machiavelli, in which citizens are more concerned with their personal and group interests than with the common good of the political community as a whole. So what has the term 'republicanism' come to mean in an Irish context then? Some years ago while on a J1 visa on Nantucket a friend remarked on the fact that every house on the island seemed to have a US flag flying proudly in the front garden. 'If we did that people would just think we were RA' he remarked. I don't think you would struggle to find somebody of my generation in Ireland today who hasn't been inhibited in expressions of pride in Irish republican values as a result of the uniquely Irish connotations of the term 'republicanism,' even if perhaps they wouldn't have put it quite that way. Consider this from Queens's historian Feargal McGarry; 'the ideological vagueness of modern Irish republicanism, a distinctive political tradition rooted more in an incoherent blend of Fenianism, Catholic nationalism and Irish-Ireland cultural nationalism than the republican principles of the American revolution.. It is only in this sense that figures as diverse as Wolfe Tone (a product of the French Enlightenment) and Patrick Pearse can be brought together in a seamless pantheon of martyrs to sustain and legitimise present day republican objectives'. Tom Gavin has also noted that 'the term republicanism is generally understood in Ireland as a sort of shorthand for insurrectionist anti-British nationalism rather than any particular ideological or philosophical principles'. On this question there can be little doubt, although I have yet to hear a single commentator in the Irish media make this point. Yet the importance of this question is central to the whole debate. Surely we must know what we are 'reclaiming' if we are to have any chance of a legitimate choice with regard to whether we want to 'reclaim' it or not. Suppose as an experiment we took to agree on Jefferson's principle that politicians or governments are 'republican' 'only in proportion as they embody the will of their people, and execute it.' How would modern-day Irish 'republicans' score on this metric then? Sinn Fein/IRA would surely not score well. Never since the 1920's did the 'struggle' command popular support, so their compliance with the 'will of the people' or even basic democratic principles is surely in single figures. On the personal and ' inalienable rights' of individuals they must score zero by default such has been their callow disregard for innocent life. Ironically, until the Good Friday Agreement, Sinn Fein/IRA have repeatedly been defined and shaped by their opposition to political compromise, and the most inflexible of them have always succeeded in representing themselves as the authentic voice of 'republicanism.' How about the 'republican party' Fianna Fail? How do they score on embodying the 'will of the people?' Well, recent evidence is not encouraging. On February 15th 2003 an Irish Times/MRBI opinion poll showed that without a new UN resolution (which never came) just 21% of the Irish people would approve of allowing Shannon airport to be used by the US military, with 68% disapproving. A republican government therefore would have disallowed the use of our sovereign territory in such an illegal war in accordance with the wishes of 2.8 million of its citizens. 'The Republican Party' in government did the opposite. However, any attempt to assess the extent to which Irish politicians 'embody and execute' the will of the Irish people however is subject to one serious restriction. Even if data on wider citizen preferences were available (which is infrequently the case), such an analysis presupposes that each citizen has all the information at hand required to form an informed opinion. If this is not the case then surely no degree of public acquiescence can confer 'republicanism' on any politician, political party or government. As Jefferson said, 'only when the people are well-informed can they be trusted with their own government.' It may come as cold comfort to those of us who view Irish 'republicans' as having abrogated their political responsibilities to the Irish Republic to say that in the United States the situation is even worse. There, the 'Republican party' was long known for its adherence to balanced budgets, constitutional government, a non-interventionist foreign policy and for keeping government out of peoples personal lives. Today that country has unprecedented deficits, the Bill of Rights has been eviscerated, the army is bogged down in two (and potentially a third) Asian wars and well, in a word, Schiavo. It is perhaps symptomatic of the age that nobody seems to realise that here in Ireland or in the United States we are led by 'republicans' who only seem to share one thing in common, a distain for basic republican values. This can be expressed in terms of democratic values, respect for the individual or advocacy of an informed public. Axiomatically, we don't realise because we are uninformed. We are uninformed (in both jurisdictions) primarily because we live in corporate controlled media environments where the objectives of corporations (legal citizens?) and citizens shall never the mark twain meet. Almost one hundred years ago that Irish patriot James Connolly stated that the struggle for Irish freedom had two aspects, national and social. Were he to analyse the state of Irish freedom in 2006 he would surely have a different focus. Yet if we can agree that a republic is such 'only in proportion as it embodies the will of their people' and that the people 'can only be trusted with their own government when they are well-informed' can we not say that 'republicanism' in 2006 can be interpreted as the degree to which public opinion is informed? I believe we can and we should. Perhaps only then is our true august destiny possible. ===== Morgan Stack is a lecturer at the Department of Accountancy, Finance and Information Systems at University College Cork. He is co-founder of the Irish 9/11 Truth Movement and an independent candidate at the next general election in the constituencies of Kerry North and Cork South Central.

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ppdoddy · 5 years ago

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Wynton Marsalis

With the crescendo of public outcry and proliferation of opinions and justifiable expressions of outrage by so many experts, officials and popular celebrities, I fear there’s little room or need for yet another person voicing a commonly held opinion. I also believe that the everyday tragedies that are commonplace and routine to our everyday way of living, should be addressed when they happen, not when so much pressure has built up in the system that it must be let out. It’s also much more difficult to draw a crowd every day for the sanctioned and accepted forms of corruption and disrespect of Black Americans that are shouted from countless recordings and videos and even more powerfully whispered in the form of discriminatory laws, practices and procedures that result in unfair housing and employment practices, and more tragically, lengthy unjust prison sentences.

Much of this “cacophony of crazy” is executed officiously and with a warm and innocuous smile. Therefore, Americans of all hues pass quickly from anger to acceptance, and as months turn to years, our daily silence and inaction is willfully misread as endorsement and back we go to go the illusion that “we’re past this”, because the daily grind is more important than what we find if we just open our eyes and keep them open.

This particular tragedy, however common it’s become across these last decades, is perfectly symbolic of this specific time and place. And this global pandemic has given it a clear and more pungent stage. This murder is so distinctive because of the large size and gentle nature of the man who was murdered, because of the smug, patient and determined demeanor of his killer and of the other peace officers protecting the crime in full public view, and because our nation is always attempting to escape its original sin with the loud shouting of other serious, though less egregious, transgressions. This fully recorded public execution yet again demands our full attention and interest, IF we have the slightest remnant of belief in the morality, reason and intelligence required to realize, maintain and protect a libertarian democracy.

In each of the four decades of my adult life, I have addressed our myriad American social and character problems with an involved piece that always defends a belief in the progression towards freedom that my parents taught us was perhaps possible for all. Experientially, artistically, and spiritually, I’ve had a lifetime relationship - akin to obsession - with confronting this national calamity and conundrum.

As these decades have passed and our nation has retreated from the promises of the Civil Rights Movement that my generation grew up believing would substantially improve economic and social opportunities for those who had been denied by our ‘traditions’, I have spoken, written, played and composed about the toll that American racial injustice has taken on all of us—our possibilities, our presence and our promise. Those words, notes and more seem to have been wasted on gigs, recordings, in classrooms, in prisons, in parks, on tv shows, in print, on radio and from almost any podium from the deep hood to palatial penthouse in cities, towns and suburbs in every state and region of our country day and night and sometimes deep into the night for over 40 relentless years.

Just yesterday, I was walking with my 11-year-old daughter and she asked me, “Did you see the video of the man in Minneapolis?” “Yes” I said. I always talk to her about history and slavery and all kinds of stuff that she is not interested in - and probably overdo it for that reason. She asked, “Why did the man just kneel on him and kill him like that in front of everybody?“ Instead of answering I asked her a question back, ”If I went out of my way to squash something that was harmless to me, and stomped on it repeatedly and deliberately to make sure I had killed every drop of life in it, and then looked defiantly at you, as if triumphant. Why would I do that?” She said, “You hate bugs.” I laughed and said, “Let’s say it’s not necessarily a bug, just whatever I go out of my way to utterly destroy. Why would I?” She said, “Because you can.” “Yes,” and I further asked, “Why else?”

“Because you want to”, and then I said “Yes, but can you think of another more basic reason?” She thought for a while and just couldn’t come up with it. I kept it going saying and aggravating her,” It’s one of the most important ones.” After a few minutes she rolled her eyes and said, “Just tell me.” I debated with myself about telling her this last reason since it’s almost always left out of the national discussions when these types of repeated crimes by our peace officers are committed, but I figured, it’s never too early to consider the obvious. So, I said, “Because he enjoyed it. For him, and for many others, that type of thing is fun. Like them good ole boys in Georgia chasing that brother through the neighborhood to defend themselves.” It’s no more complex than that. She said,” hmmmmm....” unconvinced. And I said, “this type of fun is much older even than America itself.” I considered how different her understanding is of these things, if only just because of time, place and experience.

During my childhood, raw racism and pure absolute ignorance was just a fact, but so was enlightened protest and determined resistance. It was the times, the 60’s going into the 70’s. With our Afros and the consciousness music of James Brown, Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, younger brothers were determined not to put up with any bullshit at all, unlike our ancestors, who we felt had willfully endured and accepted disrespect. And it was so easy to believe they were acquiescent in their own degradation because we didn’t know anything about the deep deep sorrow and pains of their lives, because they bore it all in silence and disquieting shame. Now, those old folks are long gone, and each passing day reveals the naïveté of our underestimation of the power and stubbornness of our opponent. Now, our ancestors loom much larger albeit as shadowy premonitions in the background of a blinding mirror that is exposing us all, black and white.

Racist mythology, social inequality, and economic exploitation used propaganda and physical lines of demarcation to create and enforce a state of mind. It was called segregation. Because my parents grew to adulthood in it and I was raised in it, I unknowingly believed in it, and even referred to myself as a minority. The late Albert Murray, my mentor and intellectual grandfather in Harlem, New York, dissuaded me from the segregated mindset with a penetrating question, “How are you going to accept being a minority in your own country? Is an Italian a minority in Italy?”

Well, let’s see. That’s a question our country has to ask itself. If we are plural so be it. But we aren’t. We are segregated in so many more ways than race and if we are to be integrated, a nasty question remains: whose genes will recede and whose will be dominant? Who is them and who is us? Mr. Murray once told me, “Racial conflict in America has always been black and white versus white.” We see that in the current riots that have sprung up around the country. There are all kinds of folks out there and always have been. Any cursory viewing of protests in the 60’s reveals Americans of all hues.

But when all is said and done, and all the videos and photos become just a part of a protester’s personal narrative kit to be pulled out for kids and grandkids as a testament of their youth. When the enormous collective wealth of America passes from one generation to the next, who of our white brothers and sisters now so chagrined will be out in the streets then? Playing loud defiant music in your bedroom means one thing at 15, but it’s very different when it’s your house. Who will be out there making sure that their darker-hued brother and sister in the struggle has enough opportunity to feed their family, and a good enough education to join the national debate to articulate an informed position in their fight for their rights and responsibilities and the financial security to enjoy older age with the comforts of health, home, and happiness? If the 80’s Reagan revolution is any indication, don’t hold your breath for the “post racial America” that we were supposed to have achieved without having corrected or even acknowledged any of the real problems.

The whole construct of blackness and whiteness as identity is fake anyway. It is a labyrinth of bullshit designed to keep you lost and running around and around in search of a solution that can only be found outside of the game itself. Our form of Democracy affords us the opportunity to mine a collective intelligence, a collective creativity, and a collective human heritage. But the game keeps us focused on beating people we should be helping. And the more helpless the target, the more vicious the beating. Like I was trying to explain to my daughter, something just feels good about abusing another person when you feel bad about yourself.

We can’t be feeling that good about our nation right now. Separated by wealth disparity, segregated in thought and action, poorly led on the left and on the right, confused in values of institutions and symbols of excellence, lacking in all integrity from the highest to the lowest levels of government, undisciplined in exercising the responsibilities of citizenship, disengaged and overfed on meaningless trivia and games, at each other’s throats all the time for every issue. We seem to be at a dead end.

It’s funny to think this whole experiment in democracy could end with a populace that is so polarized and self-absorbed that it can’t imagine atoning for the slavery and subjugation of other human beings and sharing enormous wealth (financial and other) with each other. But it wouldn’t be that surprising, because no matter how many times we find ourselves with the opportunity to right tremendous wrongs, we just keep coming up with the same wrong answer. It’s like having the solution to a math problem, not knowing the underlying mechanics to actually solve it, and lacking the patience and humility to ask for help-to learn. It’s the damndest thing to just keep doing the same wrong thing over and over again, and more forcefully wrong each time......or maybe, that wrong answer we keep coming up with—maybe it’s just who we actually are.

Life is not a book or a movie. It is itself much too complicated and simple to be understood from any one person’s perspective. Its truths come to their own conclusions that live as facts though lies may stand as temporary history. But George Floyd lying in the cold cold ground at this moment is a fact, as was the fact of Eric Garner and all of the other Americans who didn’t deserve to be killed by their peace officers. The murders of both men are eerily similar. And they, taken together though almost six years apart, are not even a referendum on the offending officers, but a view into how we can’t get past the illegality and illegitimacy of our courts and our politics that snatched back the North’s victory from the South in the Civil War. This successful legal and political wrangling to recast slavery as peonage and to maintain an underclass is still going on. Its victories, in effect, spit on the graves of 700,000 Americans lost on both sides in that conflict. And we refight our Civil War every day. It was interesting hearing Keisha Lance Bottoms, the Mayor of Atlanta and Killer Mike both reference the Civil War, the Civil Rights Movement and this moment in one breath. They put this present moment in its proper context – a continuation of the struggle for human rights and civil liberties against the legacy of slavery and unapologetic racism.

These were Abraham Lincoln’s thoughts on slavery:

“I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself. I hate it because it deprives our republic an example of its just influence in the world, enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites, causes the real friends of freedom to doubt our sincerity, and especially because it forces so many really good men among ourselves into an open war with the very fundamental principles of civil liberty, criticizing the Declaration of Independence, and insisting that there is no right principle of action but self-interest.”

Notice the list of corruptions that Lincoln laid out 160 years ago - there is no better definition of our current position. He must have come up out of the grave to tell us yet again. Sad as it is to say, contemporary Americans just may not be up to the challenge of democracy. A lot of countries in the world seem to be openly retreating from it. But that open retreat will be different here, for our credo of equality, freedom and the dignity of persons requires us to construct elaborate ways of eliminating stubborn problems that we seem to not have the will, wherewithal, and humanity to solve.

And it’s the slow, slow choke out of everything black: that fake construct of blackness that was invented in America for the express purpose of elevating an equally fake whiteness; that blackness that has been parodied and mocked and shamed, been raped and robbed and lynched, cheated and fooled and straight up hustled into slapping itself under the banner of entertainment, still seeking the attention and resources of its masters by hating and disrespecting and killing itself; that omnipresent blackness to be named and renamed again and yet again for the purposes of denying its very name and birthright, that blackness that shows up in everything from a bowl of grits and a Southern twang to a whining rock guitar and a piece of fried chicken, to The Constitution itself. Yeah, choking all the blackness out is going to be hard. Because it shows up as state’s rights versus federal authority, as the root of the electoral college and as gerrymandered districts and the modern repression of some people’s right to vote. That inescapable blackness is always a primary subject in the discussions that elect Presidents where it shows up as immigrants, criminals, and disavowed preachers. It’s clearly seen every day and night in our richest cities staggering down the streets in a tattered stupor with a sign saying, “do you see me?” and bearing the dates 1835, 1789, 1855 and all of those slavery years. And all those ghosts remind you that we rolled back Reconstruction, we denied the Afro-American heroism of WWI with the segregation of WWII, that we denied our citizens access to equal funding and equal housing and equal education and equal health care and equal opportunities and that we rolled back the gains of the Civil Rights movement under on the very watch of many of us that are alive to read this post. And that at each broken promise, said with a smile, “fare thee well brother, fare the well”.

That slow choking of all the blackness out of the American DNA will prove to be impossible because we are written into the original Constitution – albeit it as 3/5ths of a person. Black folks’ struggle, more than any other, has advanced the integrity of that document down through these bloody centuries. The challenge that faces our country now is what it has always been: Can we reckon with the idea that the opposite of injustice is not justice, it is corrective assistance. The question that continues to plague us across centuries, decades, years, months, days, hours, minutes and even seconds: Do we have the will and the intention to get that 3/5ths up above 5/5ths and create a productive society the likes of which has never been seen?

One thing I know for sure, that’s not ever going to happen with your foot on a black neck, and I’m not talking about the most current, obviously guilty police officer. This is about all of us rejecting the injustices of our collective past with consistent and relentless individual action that goes far beyond giving money.

This has been my response to injustice in our country and in the world across the last forty years:

Black Codes (1984); Blood on the Fields (1997); All Rise (1999); From the Plantation to The Penitentiary (2006); and The Ever Fonky Low Down (2019)

– Wynton

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ppdoddy · 5 years ago

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Michael Moore

AN OPEN LETTER TO JOE BIDEN Dear President-Elect Biden:

First of all, congratulations! YOU did it. WE did it! You stopped the madness. A grateful nation - and myself - are in a state of joy, hope and relief. Thank you for that! We are all eager to join with you to repair the damage done to our country — and to eliminate that about our society and our politics which gave us Donald Trump in the first place.

Mr. President-Elect, I first met you at the Democratic National Convention in Boston in 2004. It was clear to me from our talk that day that you were not the politician I remembered from the 1990s. On that day in Boston, we were by then over a year into the Iraq War, a war you voted for. My “Fahrenheit 9/11“ had just come out and you wanted to let me know that you were aware of the folly you had been sucked into. It seemed to me that you were doing a lot of soul searching and you wanted to hear my thoughts. To be honest, I was distracted by how perfect your teeth were, and I wondered, could you really be from the working class? By the end of our talk I was convinced there was something that was quite real and very good about you, though perhaps somewhat buried inside. Would it ever come out so the public could see it? As I reflect today on it - and you - I am sincerely hoping that you will indeed govern as a president who’s from the working class. You - one of us - in the White House. That’s how it should feel. Your actions, if bold, and brave, will make that true.

You are also our second Catholic president. I believe you are a person of faith. You and I were taught the same lessons in Catholic school: to love our neighbor, even our enemy; to create a world where everyone regardless of status or station has a seat at the table, and everyone gets a slice of the pie; a world where “the rich man will have a harder time getting into heaven than a camel will have getting through the eye of the needle.” We were taught that we will be judged by how we treat the least amongst us. Do I have that right? Are these not the moral, foundational principles of the coming Biden presidency?

I was so moved by your victory speech Saturday night when you told the immigrants and the children of immigrants that the Dreamers no longer had to live in fear. That Muslims were once again welcomed into our country. That the world could breathe a sigh of relief because we were going to let the planet Earth itself breathe and have some relief. And you told the teachers of America that starting January 20th, “one of your own will be living in the White House.” That just felt instantly good.

So if I may, I’d like to suggest a few things that might make your presidency one of the best this country has ever had. You and I may have our political differences (you like Amtrak trains, I’d like to ride a bullet train from New York to LA in 10 hours!😎), but I know that you and I - and tens of millions of others - all want and believe in the same basic things: • Health Care is a human right and every American must be covered; • Everyone must be paid a living wage and all of us must work to eliminate poverty and rebuild our broken middle class; • The massive and growing gulf between the ultra rich and everyone else must be narrowed — and the wealthy must go back to paying the taxes they should pay; • Women must be paid the same as men, and no man or government has the right to tell them what they can do or not do with their bodies.

So here’s my two cents:

1. You are right to make containing Covid-19 Job #1. Had Trump won, I’m guessing up to a million people in the next year or so would have died from him ignoring this virus. Yesterday you named your Covid task force of doctors and scientists and you are putting them to work. We don’t have a second to lose. Thank you for this.

2. As soon as you can, please provide much more unemployment relief for the jobless, stimulus checks for all, help for small businesses, and the creation of jobs we desperately need.

3. Millions have lost their health insurance because our system ties one’s health coverage to their employer. What happens when the employer, like now, is suddenly gone, or the boss wakes up one morning and decides these employees’ health benefits are too costly and must be cut? BOOM! Millions of families suddenly have no health insurance. This is nuts.

You MUST create a health system like every other industrial democracy — one backed by the government, not by the whims of the boss where you work or the pandemic that has shut him or her down. This is just plain common sense.

4. I see various people trying to take credit for your victory — and using their personal agendas to push you away from the progressive Left and toward the cowardly center which believes that the best way to beat Republicans is to just be a more easily-digestible version of Republicans. They think because Trump got 70 million votes the Democrats should reject Black Lives Matter, AOC, and anything that vaguely sounds like socialism — at a time when the majority of our citizens under the age of 35, according to most polls, prefer the idea of democratic socialism over the greed of modern-day capitalism. Why risk losing them? We need to listen to and understand why they feel this way. They’ve been saddled with crushing student debt and we’ve handed them a planet In the middle of its 6th extinction event as their future. You and Barack introduced them to the benefits of democratic socialism by letting them stay on their parents health insurance until they’re 26! The result: They just set a record by coming out and voting for you in the largest youth numbers ever.

But you know all this. And you also know how you won these razor-thin victories in the final five states as we nervously watched the final ballots come in from Black Philly, Black Detroit, Black Atlanta, Black Flint. Out west, it was Latinx and Navajo voters who delivered Nevada and Arizona to you. In your speech on Saturday you acknowledged it. And never in our history have I heard a President-elect single out the Black community and thank them “for having my back. And I promise you, I will have your back!” Black and brown and indigenous peoples, plus a landslide of women and young adult voters made this happen. Wow. I absolutely know you’ll keep that promise.

5. Please do not make the same mistake an otherwise well-meaning President Obama made in his first two years. He wanted everyone to get along. He was willing to compromise on anything. Kumbaya. The Republicans had already decided they were going to block EVERYTHING Obama proposed and that’s exactly what they did for eight long years with a discipline and a ruthlessness we should probably envy.

Don’t let this happen to you. Charge in on January 20th like FDR on steroids. You have no choice. People are dying! You need to sign executive orders and cajole, demand and shame Congress into action. And GO BIG! Eliminate the Electoral College through the National Popular Vote Act! DONE! Ratify the Equal Rights Amendment for women! Just one more state needed! DONE! Send in the Army Corps of Engineers to Flint to replace the poisoned water pipes! DONE!!

And none of the above needs a single vote of the United States Senate! In fact, this past summer, your “Biden-Bernie” unity joint task force identified a whopping 277 policies and decisions of Trump’s that you have the legal authority to immediately reverse by executive order or presidential policy decision https://prospect.org/…/277-policies-biden-need-not-ask-per…/. Find that big fat black marker of his and do it!

But, yes, we also desperately need those two Georgia Senate seats to get the Biden/Harris years off to a blazing start. So let’s make that happen! All hands on deck between now and January 5th!! We will all do whatever is needed.

Friends of mine on the Left who are more cynical than I am are probably wondering why I’m sending you this letter. Haha! Well, because I saw you kiss the head of that young grieving man at the Parkland, Florida memorial for the shooting victims of Stoneman Douglas High School. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FyMa96yOel0

And because I saw you in New Hampshire this year while we were there working for Bernie, and you were doing a campaign stop and there was a restless five-year boy in the front row. His parents were trying to get him to settle down. You stopped and spoke to the boy. “Hey buddy,” you said in a kind but parental way, “if you can hang on and be a good boy for just a little bit, I’ll buy ya an ice cream!” The boy quieted down, you wrapped up and afterward you went over to the boy and his parents and you gave the kid five bucks so his mom and dad could go get him an ice cream cone. And I thought to myself, this is the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen — and then I started to cry because I wanted so much for that piece of America to come back — goofy, kind, and focusing on what’s truly important: a goddamned ice cream cone!

I think that’s why you won. People saw what I saw with you there in New Hampshire and back in Boston on that day 16 years ago — they knew that maybe, just maybe, their lives might just get a bit better - hopefully a LOT better - with you in the White House. Maybe less of them will die from the virus, this preventable horror. Trump, of whom we knew many despicable things and thought we’d already seen how low the bar could possibly go for one human being — but we never considered him under the moniker of mass killer, terrorist or superspreader. Then you, Joe, came along and offered us a respite, a break from the insanity — “Mr. Biden, we’ll be happy if you just give us four years of ‘Not Trump!’”

But I think you can give us much more than that. What could our lives be like in four years or eight years (with a Democratic Senate to boot)? How ‘bout no one ever goes bankrupt again because they got sick? How ‘bout no one is sitting in a prison cell for possessing marijuana or actual drugs? How ‘bout every child gets to go to a great school and every neighborhood has an expanded free library open seven days a week? How ‘bout paid family medical leave so you can take care of your elderly parents and not lose your job? How ‘bout my bullet train! You and we can make all this happen. It’s not rocket science. 30+ other countries already do it. (https://www.amazon.com/Where-Invade-Next-Micha…/…/B01EGW9EOU) They’re happier. Why not us? Our founders promised it to us in their second sentence: “the pursuit of Happiness.“ They said that’s what America would be — and it’s been a rare day when we’ve actually had a glimpse of it.

Joe, you’re the guy to fulfill the promise. I’ll help. So will my neighbors on the floor where I live. As will the woman who delivers my mail, the workers who stock the shelves of my neighborhood market, the nurse who just wrote me in tears because yesterday she watched her 22nd patient die, alone, no family allowed, from Covid. Not to mention the millions upon millions of Americans who are ready to be foot soldiers in your army of justice, equality and love. We’re all in! We don’t want to go back to the old “normal.” We want a new normal!

We want ice cream.

All my best, Michael Moore

P.S. You know why I think you can and will do this? You picked Kamala Harris to run with you! Ranked as the most liberal senator in the U.S. Senate. A woman. A Black woman! I saw the first debate, the one where she challenged you and threw shade on your younger self. Most people (including me), if that had happened to us, we probably wouldn’t have gotten over it. You did. I’m guessing your conscience whispered to you, “well, dang, maybe she has a point.” You hold no grudges. You are a forgiving soul. But then you didn’t just forgive her — you put her on the Big Ticket! Who would do that? You did! That’s why my cautious, hopeful bet is on the good hands we’re now in — both your hands, Kamala’s hands, and the hands of the mass millions who voted for you and will continue to rise up and fight for this new, better, post-Trump, post-pandemic America.

0 notes

ppdoddy · 5 years ago

Text

route

traceroute: Warning: twitter.com has multiple addresses; using 104.244.42.193

traceroute to twitter.com (104.244.42.193), 64 hops max, 72 byte packets

1 192.168.1.1 (192.168.1.1) 1.929 ms 3.148 ms 1.328 ms

2 host-212-158-250-36.dslgb.com (212.158.250.36) 16.496 ms 16.402 ms 16.732 ms

3 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 19.500 ms 18.961 ms 18.982 ms

4 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 19.395 ms 18.471 ms 18.231 ms

5 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 18.028 ms 18.276 ms 17.957 ms

6 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 20.436 ms 20.201 ms 19.999 ms

7 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 19.890 ms 20.387 ms 20.312 ms

8 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 19.805 ms 20.052 ms 20.206 ms

9 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 21.922 ms 21.669 ms 21.593 ms

10 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 21.796 ms 21.902 ms 22.143 ms

11 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 22.254 ms 22.526 ms 22.542 ms

12 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 23.899 ms 24.663 ms 103.642 ms

13 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 23.632 ms 23.667 ms 24.891 ms

14 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 23.716 ms 23.437 ms 23.237 ms

15 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 24.725 ms 25.694 ms 24.896 ms

16 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 25.115 ms 24.967 ms 25.226 ms

17 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 24.837 ms 25.012 ms 24.988 ms

18 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 26.237 ms 25.798 ms 26.378 ms

19 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 26.802 ms 26.710 ms *

20 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 26.898 ms 25.978 ms 26.115 ms

21 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 28.066 ms 28.063 ms 27.984 ms

22 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 27.925 ms 29.051 ms 28.908 ms

23 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 28.849 ms 27.926 ms 27.981 ms

24 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 29.493 ms 29.054 ms 29.260 ms

25 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 30.241 ms 29.967 ms 29.838 ms

26 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 29.430 ms 29.220 ms 28.998 ms

27 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 30.960 ms 31.512 ms 31.360 ms

28 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 32.248 ms 31.639 ms 32.406 ms

29 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 30.889 ms 30.406 ms 30.051 ms

30 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 31.828 ms 32.824 ms 32.209 ms

31 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 32.499 ms 32.389 ms 32.237 ms

32 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 32.769 ms 32.720 ms 32.423 ms

33 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 106.805 ms 34.067 ms 35.008 ms

34 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 35.266 ms 35.708 ms 36.154 ms

35 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 35.209 ms 34.741 ms 34.426 ms

36 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 36.583 ms 36.225 ms 36.308 ms

37 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 36.698 ms 36.302 ms 36.407 ms

38 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 35.422 ms 35.422 ms 35.714 ms

39 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 37.208 ms 37.587 ms *

40 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 38.599 ms 37.297 ms 37.010 ms

41 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 37.760 ms 37.175 ms 37.576 ms

42 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 39.120 ms 38.774 ms 38.549 ms

43 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 38.623 ms 39.024 ms 42.508 ms

44 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 39.933 ms 39.304 ms 40.066 ms

45 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 40.908 ms 40.370 ms 40.724 ms

46 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 40.481 ms 42.143 ms 40.942 ms

47 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 40.500 ms 39.864 ms 39.909 ms

48 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 41.229 ms 41.053 ms 42.191 ms

49 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 41.824 ms 42.095 ms 42.340 ms

50 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 106.047 ms 42.357 ms 42.131 ms

51 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 43.540 ms 43.633 ms 43.880 ms

52 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 44.007 ms 45.291 ms 43.505 ms

53 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 43.783 ms 43.814 ms 43.740 ms

54 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 119.249 ms 44.401 ms 43.956 ms

55 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 45.192 ms 45.248 ms 46.078 ms

56 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 45.801 ms 46.424 ms 45.365 ms

57 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 46.972 ms 46.660 ms 46.249 ms

58 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 47.018 ms 47.074 ms 47.342 ms

59 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 46.841 ms 46.631 ms 46.923 ms

60 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 48.648 ms 48.188 ms 48.144 ms

61 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 48.861 ms * 47.838 ms

62 63.130.105.130 (63.130.105.130) 47.891 ms 46.854 ms 47.191 ms

63 63.130.127.213 (63.130.127.213) 48.670 ms 50.001 ms 49.207 ms

64 10.200.18.45 (10.200.18.45) 50.552 ms 49.269 ms 49.276 ms

0 notes