Our nation has a serious problem with race. Like a grotesque sleeping giant, it has been awakened by our current administration’s fueling of partisanship and xenophobia, the “us vs. them” rhetoric, QAnon conspiracy theories, social media disinformation, and Trump super-spreader rallies. The murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor are nothing new to minorities, who…
“Justice, justice, thou shalt pursue”
Like many Americans, I’m grieving the loss of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, aka “RBG,” and the news of her passing yesterday hit me hard, and I feel like our nation just lost one of our most beloved champions. Her accomplishments while serving our country are numerous, and I hope that we can carry…
What Happened to the GOP?
Is it just me, or had the GOP gone full-on bonkers? I’m a life-long Democrat, a snowflake liberal, but I seem to remember when Republicans still possessed some semblance of respect for the Constitution and our country as a whole.
“Suckers” and “Losers”
My husband is not a sucker or a loser, he’s a hero. Back in 1969, my husband got a letter from the draft board that he was going to Vietnam. He didn’t come from a rich family and he didn’t have any congressmen or senators to pull strings for him, his father worked in the…
The Trump Brand and the Erosion of Democracy
According to the dictionary, “branding” in the marketing sense is “the promotion of a particular product or company by means of advertising and distinctive design.” If you watched any of the RNC footage this week, it’s abundantly clear that Trump is replacing our democracy with his brand. And Trump’s brand is one of the rich…
Fear Mongering: Don’t Give Into It
There’s a quote that I like that’s attributed to Shirley MacLaine: “The more I traveled, the more I realized that fear makes strangers of people who should be friends.” This thought is especially timely today, where our nation is literally being torn apart by fear. We are faced with a pandemic and the highest number…
Election Fraud and USPS Skulduggery
Electoral fraud is the illegal interference with the process of an election, either by increasing the votes for a particular candidate, depressing the vote for a particular candidate, or both. Electoral fraud can take many forms, and what we are inevitably faced with this fall is the manipulation of absentee/mail-in ballots. The recent political skulduggery…
A Dissonant, Uncomfortable Truth
Years ago I took a cultural anthropology class as an undergrad, and I remember a lecture on belief systems, and the subject of Festinger’s Syndrome came up. I must admit I don’t remember the actual subject of the lecture, but I do remember my professor saying that in the face of contradictory evidence, people will…
Wall of Moms: You Go Girls!
Watching thousands of moms, singing “hands up, please don’t shoot me” as a lullaby tune in downtown Portland has given me hope. These women, dressed in yellow and wearing bike helmets and goggles, have come together over the past week to join nightly BLM demonstrators in Portland, Oregon. Standing arm-in-arm, placing themselves between camo-clad, armed…
Was the Killing of George Floyd Trump’s Reichstag Moment?
I recently finished reading Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, entitled Bonhoeffer : Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Born in 1906, Dietrich Bonhoeffer was a Lutheran pastor and noted theologian, but he is perhaps better remembered for his resistance to Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party, and he outwardly opposed Hitler’s persecution of Jews and minorities….