Thank you, Greg, for this excellent post and all your efforts to help "save our democracy". You and Heather Cox Richardson are my absolute must reads, and I try to keep up with a few others. I always love hearing from other commenters to your posts. You all add a lot to my perspective, so thank you to all of you as well.
For those who asked in your last post how to contribute more to you, or change the amount to more than $5/mo:
- go to the down arrow at the upper right hand corner of any of Greg's posts
- click on it, and click on "my account"
- find "plan" and click on the "change" link in parentheses following that.
- that should do it; if you don't already contribute, this won't work until you are a contributor, but I
think you have all the same options when you initially become a contributor
The one thing I wish Substack would change is an option to allow an occasional extra donation. I would be inspired to do so quite often for your amazing posts, Greg, so maybe you could suggest that to them.
Finally, I'd like to add that I'm looking forward to some transcripts as well for your podcasts. I'm someone who has hearing loss issues in both of my ears. I also do not have unlimited data internet service (I live in the middle of nowhere in Upstate NY/ADKs), so things like podcasts and videos eat up a lot of data. But I read everything you post, and follow you and LB on Twitter pretty closely. You are so right - this is a "narrative war", and we must "PREVAIL". Your links and suggestions on how to do our part are much appreciated. Thank you again. Heidi
Thanks for that, Heidi. I had no idea! I will reach out to the Substack folks and make that suggestion.
Transcripts are labor intensive, so I have to figure out a way to automate it.
Re: data, I believe that if you download the pod, you can then listen even when your phone is not hooked up to the internet. If it's not streaming, it eats up less data.
We cannot deal with this until we call it for what it is: EX declared WAR on this country and our democracy and sent private troops to the Capitol to maim and kill.
The charge is not sedition. It is treason. The crime did not begin and end with those holding the flag poles and the bear spray. They are mere cogs in a machine of destruction.
Turn up the speed. Trace the orders to arm, to march, to search out and kill to the sources.
Arrest and jail the perpetrators and show this country and the world that we are serious about excising the cancer growing within our democracy and neighborhoods.
When the charge is treason, the punishment is death.
When I was on Twitter I re-tweeted your article about Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republicans caught on tape laughing about Russian interference in the 2016 election. I suggested they all hang for treason. Needless to say that was my last day on Twitter. I recently read Kurt Anderson’s book ‘Evil Geniuses” which lays out the fifty year plan of the right. Which I pray is finally fraying at the edges. My friends are completely shocked when I tell them the top tax rate in the United States in 1980,the year I graduated from high school, was 70 percent. Under Eisenhower it was 90 percent. If we really want to make America great tax the oligarchs like Eisenhower did. Thanks for all your good work Greg.
You are so right on, every single time. Motivates me to fight through the weariness, through the grossness of it all. Thank you for your incisive vision which gives perfect clarity to what lies before us, and why we must prevail. 🙏.
Well done. The Great Old Pirates, aka Republican Party, is the political party of liars, murderers, and thieves.
For your amusement I’d like to send you a photo of a sign posted on the door of one of Austin’s most popular coffee tasting rooms. It was put up more than a year ago, and it gives me hope that some sober citizens are clear-eyed about the GOP lies.
On the door of the Texas Coffee Roasters on East 4th St in Austin, Tx:
“NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Our roasting staff is inside roasting away and we really want to keep that going. So, the inside is now off limits until a scientist tells us we are safe to re-open. Thank you for your understanding and welcome back.”
Squelching science along with democracy is gospel with the Pirates. But not everyone is blind to them. Keep the candle lit, Greg.
"...prick-faced election thief Brian Kemp." Ha! Greg, it's gems like this that spark the laughs that keep me going. Thank you for, as ever, presenting the reality of the GOP's utter corruption and steady march to facism. McConnell threatening a scorched earth policy against all Dem proposals if Biden nukes the fillibuster is laughable; what's sobering is how many voters (and the feckless White House press pool) remain clueless about the long plan these bastards have fomented since the glorious Reagan era. NPR just reported that Americans aren't "concerned" about the fillibuster as a protest worthy issue. So how do we get the disinterested in their own welfare engaged in breaking down the infrastructure that supports it? We're caught in the belly of the whale, slow burning from bile, but most of us are blowing up inner tubes.
THANK YOU. Such an important piece. I particularly appreciate your calling out the media. I can barely watch the Judy show on PBS. She fails to challenge GOP lies and unfailingly challenges every Democrat on the show. Anyway, glad you're here shedding light into the dark corners.
Righteous rant of truth. I believe there are other enemies in addition to GOP, Fox and its evil spawn, and the crime syndicate aka GQP\Rethuglican Party that are just as insidious but this is neither the time nor the place to bring that up. Suffice to say you have perfectly described the danger from the Right. I also subscribe to Eric Boehlert's Press Run and commented this week that I have fully embraced the realization that the media prefer that fascist to be in power in spite of his genocidal pandemic practices and his efforts to overturn the election. I'm afraid to allow that understanding to penetrate all layers of my consciousness because I don't think I'm strong enough to deal with the terror underneath my rage.
Am I the only one going out of my mind over the fact that our halfway-decent CNN assigned the brother of the Governor of New York to cover the Governor of New York?
Are we all so stupefied that we don’t recognize a blatant conflict even when it yaps in our faces at 9 PM Eastern Monday through Friday? Or used to before I turned it off and the enabler Lemon following him and opted for Rachel and Lawrence who aren’t on a soapbox or related to anybody they cover, at least not that I know of…
Should know better than to drink coffee when I read your posts "....an inflatable penis with a toupee" will make me giggle each time he says something more stupid. Thanks for keeping me sane.
Ahh, Greg, how much praise can you possibly take? Another excellent missive on exactly what I've been thinking about since January 6th. I've noticed too that the Republicans are trying their best to make us all forget it happened, or try to minimize it by suggesting that they were just "protesters," 'having a bad day,' I guess. In my mind, the best possible thing ACTUAL Americans can do is to make sure that others DON'T forget it or its meaning. It was, at best, insurrection, and at worst sedition or treason. It STILL makes me angry to think of it! Republicans also make me angry to think of them, but that's been happening since the 80s, so I'm almost used to it....
Finally, I declare! I don't think Miss Lindsey-- I mean, Senator Graham -- would take too kindly to being called a "pickled husk." He certainly doesn't see himself that way. You'd have to speak to the rent-boys to be sure. I declare!!
Yesterday, I listened to a podcast in my car and the host interviewed Jake Sherman. Jake Sherman suggested that the REASON DJT wasn't successful was b/c of his inability to focus. He suggested that if he'd been able to sustain focus he might have been "successful" at legislating! What the F am I not getting here? CosPlay is right -all the way around. I'm not a gamer, but I've worked with clients who've either developed games or been addicted to them. I've also worked with clients who attend CosPlay, Lolita and similar types of conventions. This is not a criticism of a hobby or interest that people have but I think you describe a phenomena of our times where as Bandy Lee describes it the contagion of 'unreality' is so widespread, I do believe that the spreaders (RQP's and their donors) relied on this confluence of factors to create a world in which people really live in the "world of opposites".
The media is not helping. During DJT's reign of terror, I understood the support amongst journalists and the media who were reporting day in and out, isolated in their homes, in many cases listening to the sound of ambulances outside their home, some getting COVID themselves and losing family members as well. What is hugely problematic (to me), besides only a couple of media companies controlling all of media, is using "news" to promote and elevate guests who were cranking them out at a rapid pace treating them as 'celebrities', almost like a more polished Celebrity Apprentice. Then on Twitter many of them are stroking each other and it's clear that media and experts are friends outside. Not all...I don't see that with someone like Chuck Rosenberg for example. It's like going into a courtroom where you are the defendant and the lawyer on the other side walks in and has a conversation on a first name basis with the judge about their kids and lives before the proceedings begin. Both might be highly ethical in their duties, but not being an insider to the legal world the defendant feels defeated before the proceedings begin.
Book authors in government and media discovered, while carnage was happening everyday that "nope, I will not" reveal secrets or quit my job in order to maximize profits and gain celebrity. Birx, Bolton, Woodward and so many others. It's as if they wanted to contribute to the post Democracy narrative so they could pad their coffers and say, "see, told you so".
Yes. I'm trying not to expect perfection in media and journalists folk. I do expect integrity. I hesitate to name names since there are people I believe truly think they are doing a public service and they're good at it! BUT, it's like being a butterfly that is just moving forward in it's life/vocation and then it slams head on into a spider web...(Let's say the spider isn't around- I'm not so great with analogies LOL). The host or expert guest or journalist is channeled into a system that is our means for getting information and they are trapped in that web. Does this make sense? That's why I love the freshness of podcasts, substack, and Medium. COMCAST, Disney, VIACOM, and CBS only serve a few people at the top and for profit. Media has become a huge swamp (everyone should watch the movie V is for Vendetta) and I guess it's like you said-it's up to us...sigh.
Fortunately we seem to have arrested the spread. Biden seems up to the task. I hope it stays that way.
Thank you, Greg, for this excellent post and all your efforts to help "save our democracy". You and Heather Cox Richardson are my absolute must reads, and I try to keep up with a few others. I always love hearing from other commenters to your posts. You all add a lot to my perspective, so thank you to all of you as well.
For those who asked in your last post how to contribute more to you, or change the amount to more than $5/mo:
- go to the down arrow at the upper right hand corner of any of Greg's posts
- click on it, and click on "my account"
- find "plan" and click on the "change" link in parentheses following that.
- that should do it; if you don't already contribute, this won't work until you are a contributor, but I
think you have all the same options when you initially become a contributor
The one thing I wish Substack would change is an option to allow an occasional extra donation. I would be inspired to do so quite often for your amazing posts, Greg, so maybe you could suggest that to them.
Finally, I'd like to add that I'm looking forward to some transcripts as well for your podcasts. I'm someone who has hearing loss issues in both of my ears. I also do not have unlimited data internet service (I live in the middle of nowhere in Upstate NY/ADKs), so things like podcasts and videos eat up a lot of data. But I read everything you post, and follow you and LB on Twitter pretty closely. You are so right - this is a "narrative war", and we must "PREVAIL". Your links and suggestions on how to do our part are much appreciated. Thank you again. Heidi
Thanks for that, Heidi. I had no idea! I will reach out to the Substack folks and make that suggestion.
Transcripts are labor intensive, so I have to figure out a way to automate it.
Re: data, I believe that if you download the pod, you can then listen even when your phone is not hooked up to the internet. If it's not streaming, it eats up less data.
Thank you!
We cannot deal with this until we call it for what it is: EX declared WAR on this country and our democracy and sent private troops to the Capitol to maim and kill.
The charge is not sedition. It is treason. The crime did not begin and end with those holding the flag poles and the bear spray. They are mere cogs in a machine of destruction.
Turn up the speed. Trace the orders to arm, to march, to search out and kill to the sources.
Arrest and jail the perpetrators and show this country and the world that we are serious about excising the cancer growing within our democracy and neighborhoods.
When the charge is treason, the punishment is death.
I am OK with this.
.
Well said. And I agree about the punishment.
We’d both get kicked off Twitter for expressing it. Except I’m already kicked off Twitter...
Now I see yet another reason why I’ve never been on Twitter . . .
When I was on Twitter I re-tweeted your article about Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republicans caught on tape laughing about Russian interference in the 2016 election. I suggested they all hang for treason. Needless to say that was my last day on Twitter. I recently read Kurt Anderson’s book ‘Evil Geniuses” which lays out the fifty year plan of the right. Which I pray is finally fraying at the edges. My friends are completely shocked when I tell them the top tax rate in the United States in 1980,the year I graduated from high school, was 70 percent. Under Eisenhower it was 90 percent. If we really want to make America great tax the oligarchs like Eisenhower did. Thanks for all your good work Greg.
F Dorsey. Regulate Twitter!!
What Karen says.
Yeah, the good guys aren't allowed to say stuff like that on SM. Only the bad guys. Cancel culture my ass lol.
EVen raising top marginal rate to 50% would be a huge improvement, as would cracking down on offshore stuff.
TAX THE PLUTOCRACY. Go Bernie, Go Elizabeth.
You are so right on, every single time. Motivates me to fight through the weariness, through the grossness of it all. Thank you for your incisive vision which gives perfect clarity to what lies before us, and why we must prevail. 🙏.
Well done. The Great Old Pirates, aka Republican Party, is the political party of liars, murderers, and thieves.
For your amusement I’d like to send you a photo of a sign posted on the door of one of Austin’s most popular coffee tasting rooms. It was put up more than a year ago, and it gives me hope that some sober citizens are clear-eyed about the GOP lies.
On the door of the Texas Coffee Roasters on East 4th St in Austin, Tx:
“NOT OPEN TO THE PUBLIC. Our roasting staff is inside roasting away and we really want to keep that going. So, the inside is now off limits until a scientist tells us we are safe to re-open. Thank you for your understanding and welcome back.”
Squelching science along with democracy is gospel with the Pirates. But not everyone is blind to them. Keep the candle lit, Greg.
Great Old Pirates, that's a good one. Thanks!
"...prick-faced election thief Brian Kemp." Ha! Greg, it's gems like this that spark the laughs that keep me going. Thank you for, as ever, presenting the reality of the GOP's utter corruption and steady march to facism. McConnell threatening a scorched earth policy against all Dem proposals if Biden nukes the fillibuster is laughable; what's sobering is how many voters (and the feckless White House press pool) remain clueless about the long plan these bastards have fomented since the glorious Reagan era. NPR just reported that Americans aren't "concerned" about the fillibuster as a protest worthy issue. So how do we get the disinterested in their own welfare engaged in breaking down the infrastructure that supports it? We're caught in the belly of the whale, slow burning from bile, but most of us are blowing up inner tubes.
Kemp looks like the shady bad father in every 80s movie. He just does.
😂 Time to channel John Hughes and write the Brian Kelp bio-pic (for SNL)
Thank you! Cold splash of water in the face of our "dumbed-down" political reality! We do need to be reminded, over, and over, and over...
Yes. I need to remind myself!
THANK YOU. Such an important piece. I particularly appreciate your calling out the media. I can barely watch the Judy show on PBS. She fails to challenge GOP lies and unfailingly challenges every Democrat on the show. Anyway, glad you're here shedding light into the dark corners.
It's easy to go after Dems, because they offer actual debate. Hard to debate a clown.
What you said. All of it.
Great call to arms! Wait, not like guns, more like moral fortitude stuff. Anyway, great post.
Righteous rant of truth. I believe there are other enemies in addition to GOP, Fox and its evil spawn, and the crime syndicate aka GQP\Rethuglican Party that are just as insidious but this is neither the time nor the place to bring that up. Suffice to say you have perfectly described the danger from the Right. I also subscribe to Eric Boehlert's Press Run and commented this week that I have fully embraced the realization that the media prefer that fascist to be in power in spite of his genocidal pandemic practices and his efforts to overturn the election. I'm afraid to allow that understanding to penetrate all layers of my consciousness because I don't think I'm strong enough to deal with the terror underneath my rage.
Well, the oligarchs who own the media companies certainly prefer more authoritarianism.
Am I the only one going out of my mind over the fact that our halfway-decent CNN assigned the brother of the Governor of New York to cover the Governor of New York?
Are we all so stupefied that we don’t recognize a blatant conflict even when it yaps in our faces at 9 PM Eastern Monday through Friday? Or used to before I turned it off and the enabler Lemon following him and opted for Rachel and Lawrence who aren’t on a soapbox or related to anybody they cover, at least not that I know of…
Every "news" outlet is so different. CNN is often so terribly lame and superficial. I have so many news apps, and they frequently disappoint.
My favorite news sources are right here with Greg, and HCR, and Lucian Truscott, all on Substack: [name].substack.com
Helps keep me sane. The mainstream news sources do not keep me sane, not even the opinion writers, especially not CNN, retch.
Yes. I think the reasons they do is more sinister than ad revenue, clicks, etc.
Should know better than to drink coffee when I read your posts "....an inflatable penis with a toupee" will make me giggle each time he says something more stupid. Thanks for keeping me sane.
Upon further reflection I see that he looks like the blow-up autopilot in the Airplane! movie. Thanks!
Stop editing yourself. It was perfect as written.
oh, you mean an inflatable sex doll?
He does!
"a Confederacy of Fascists." Indeed. Best line in the article.
Ahh, Greg, how much praise can you possibly take? Another excellent missive on exactly what I've been thinking about since January 6th. I've noticed too that the Republicans are trying their best to make us all forget it happened, or try to minimize it by suggesting that they were just "protesters," 'having a bad day,' I guess. In my mind, the best possible thing ACTUAL Americans can do is to make sure that others DON'T forget it or its meaning. It was, at best, insurrection, and at worst sedition or treason. It STILL makes me angry to think of it! Republicans also make me angry to think of them, but that's been happening since the 80s, so I'm almost used to it....
Finally, I declare! I don't think Miss Lindsey-- I mean, Senator Graham -- would take too kindly to being called a "pickled husk." He certainly doesn't see himself that way. You'd have to speak to the rent-boys to be sure. I declare!!
Thanks, Steve. I was very proud of pickled husk. In Graham's case, pickled in gin.
Yesterday, I listened to a podcast in my car and the host interviewed Jake Sherman. Jake Sherman suggested that the REASON DJT wasn't successful was b/c of his inability to focus. He suggested that if he'd been able to sustain focus he might have been "successful" at legislating! What the F am I not getting here? CosPlay is right -all the way around. I'm not a gamer, but I've worked with clients who've either developed games or been addicted to them. I've also worked with clients who attend CosPlay, Lolita and similar types of conventions. This is not a criticism of a hobby or interest that people have but I think you describe a phenomena of our times where as Bandy Lee describes it the contagion of 'unreality' is so widespread, I do believe that the spreaders (RQP's and their donors) relied on this confluence of factors to create a world in which people really live in the "world of opposites".
The media is not helping. During DJT's reign of terror, I understood the support amongst journalists and the media who were reporting day in and out, isolated in their homes, in many cases listening to the sound of ambulances outside their home, some getting COVID themselves and losing family members as well. What is hugely problematic (to me), besides only a couple of media companies controlling all of media, is using "news" to promote and elevate guests who were cranking them out at a rapid pace treating them as 'celebrities', almost like a more polished Celebrity Apprentice. Then on Twitter many of them are stroking each other and it's clear that media and experts are friends outside. Not all...I don't see that with someone like Chuck Rosenberg for example. It's like going into a courtroom where you are the defendant and the lawyer on the other side walks in and has a conversation on a first name basis with the judge about their kids and lives before the proceedings begin. Both might be highly ethical in their duties, but not being an insider to the legal world the defendant feels defeated before the proceedings begin.
Book authors in government and media discovered, while carnage was happening everyday that "nope, I will not" reveal secrets or quit my job in order to maximize profits and gain celebrity. Birx, Bolton, Woodward and so many others. It's as if they wanted to contribute to the post Democracy narrative so they could pad their coffers and say, "see, told you so".
Ultimately it's about greed, right? Greed and ego and power. Those people all sold us out for those things.
Yes. I'm trying not to expect perfection in media and journalists folk. I do expect integrity. I hesitate to name names since there are people I believe truly think they are doing a public service and they're good at it! BUT, it's like being a butterfly that is just moving forward in it's life/vocation and then it slams head on into a spider web...(Let's say the spider isn't around- I'm not so great with analogies LOL). The host or expert guest or journalist is channeled into a system that is our means for getting information and they are trapped in that web. Does this make sense? That's why I love the freshness of podcasts, substack, and Medium. COMCAST, Disney, VIACOM, and CBS only serve a few people at the top and for profit. Media has become a huge swamp (everyone should watch the movie V is for Vendetta) and I guess it's like you said-it's up to us...sigh.