[Oe List ...] bizarre

Tue Oct 29 07:11:20 PDT 2024

Thanks Judi, from Heather Cox Richardson’s column.  She keeps me halfway
sane these days!
Nancy

On Tue, Oct 29, 2024 at 8:49 AM Judi White via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
wrote:

> October 27, 2024 (Sunday)
>
> I stand corrected. I thought this year’s October surprise was the reality
> that Trump’s mental state had slipped so badly he could not campaign in any
> coherent way.
>
> It turns out that the 2024 October surprise was the Trump campaign’s
> fascist rally at Madison Square Garden, a rally so extreme that Republicans
> running for office have been denouncing it all over social media tonight.
>
> There was never any question that this rally was going to be anything but
> an attempt to inflame Trump’s base. The plan for a rally at Madison Square
> Garden itself deliberately evoked its predecessor: a Nazi rally at the old
> Madison Square Garden on February 20, 1939. About 18,000 people showed up
> for that “true Americanism” event, held on a stage that featured a huge
> portrait of George Washington in his Continental Army uniform flanked by
> swastikas.
>
> Like that earlier event, Trump’s rally was supposed to demonstrate power
> and inspire his base to violence.
>
> Apparently in anticipation of the Sunday rally, Trump on the previous
> Friday night replaced his signature blue suit and red tie with the black
> and gold of the neofascist Proud Boys. That extremist group was central to
> the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol and has been rebuilding to
> support Trump again in 2024.
>
> On Saturday the Trump campaign then released a list of 29 people set to be
> on the stage at the rally. Notably, the list was all MAGA Republicans,
> including vice presidential nominee Ohio senator J.D. Vance, House speaker
> Mike Johnson (LA), Representative Elise Stefanik (NY), Representative Byron
> Donalds (FL), Trump backer Elon Musk, Trump ally Rudy Giuliani, Robert F.
> Kennedy Jr., right-wing host Tucker Carlson, Trump sons Don Jr. and Eric,
> and Eric’s wife, Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump.
>
> Libbey Dean of NewsNation noted that none of the seven Republicans running
> in New York’s competitive House races were on the list. When asked why not,
> according to Dean, Trump senior advisor Jason Miller said: “The demand, the
> request for people to speak, is quite extensive.” Asked if the campaign had
> turned down anyone who asked to speak, Miller said no.
>
> Meanwhile, the decision of the owners of the Los Angeles Times and the
> Washington Post not to endorse Democratic presidential candidate Vice
> President Kamala Harris seems to have sparked a backlash. As Will Bunch of
> the Philadelphia Inquirer noted, “in a strange way the papers did perform a
> public service: showing American voters what life under a dictator would
> feel like.”
>
> Early on October 26, the Washington Post itself went after Trump backer
> billionaire Elon Musk with a major story highlighting the information that
> Musk, an immigrant from South Africa, had worked illegally when he started
> his career in the U.S. Musk “did not have the legal right to work” in the
> U.S. when he started his first successful company. As part of the Trump
> campaign, Musk has emphasized his opposition to undocumented immigrants.
>
> The New York Times has tended to downplay Trump’s outrageous statements,
> but on Saturday it ran a round-up of Trump’s threats in the center of the
> front page, above the fold. It noted that Trump has vowed to expand
> presidential power, prosecute his political opponents, and crack down on
> immigration with mass deportations and detention camps. It went on to list
> his determination to undermine the North Atlantic Treaty Organization
> (NATO), use the U.S. military against Mexican drug cartels “in potential
> violation of international law,” and use federal troops against U.S.
> citizens. It added that he plans to “upend trade” with sweeping new tariffs
> that will raise consumer prices, and to rein in regulatory agencies.
>
> “To help achieve these and other goals,” the paper concluded, “his
> advisers are vetting lawyers seen as more likely to embrace aggressive
> legal theories about the scope of his power.”
>
> On Sunday the front page of the New York Times opinion section read, in
> giant capital letters: “DONALD TRUMP/ SAYS HE WILL PROSECUTE HIS ENEMIES/
> ORDER MASS DEPORTATIONS/ USE SOLDIERS AGAINST CITIZENS/ ABANDON ALLIES/
> PLAY POLITICS WITH DISASTERS/ BELIEVE HIM.” And then, inside the section,
> the paper provided the receipts: Trump’s own words outlining his fascist
> plans. “BELIEVE HIM,” the paper said.
>
> On CNN’s State of the Union this morning, host Jake Tapper refused to
> permit Trump’s running mate, Ohio senator J.D. Vance, to gaslight viewers.
> Vance angrily denied that Trump has repeatedly called for using the U.S.
> military against Americans, but Tapper came with receipts that proved the
> very things Vance denied.
>
> Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden began in the early afternoon. The
> hateful performances of the early participants set the tone for the rally.
> Early on, comedian Tony Hinchcliffe, who goes by Kill Tony, delivered a
> steamingly racist set. He said, for example: “There’s literally a floating
> island of garbage in the middle of the ocean right now. I think it’s called
> Puerto Rico.” He went on: “And these Latinos, they love making babies too.
> Just know that. They do. They do. There’s no pulling out. They don’t do
> that. They come inside. Just like they did to our country.” Hinchcliffe
> also talked about Black people carving watermelons instead of pumpkins.
>
> The speakers who followed Hinchcliffe called Vice President Kamala Harris
> “the Antichrist” and “the devil.” They called former secretary of state
> Hillary Clinton “a sick son of a b*tch,” and they railed against “f*cking
> illegals.” They insulted Latinos generally, Black Americans, Palestinians
> and Jews. Trump advisor Stephen Miller’s claim that “America is for
> Americans and Americans only” directly echoed the statement of Adolf Hitler
> that "Germany is for Germans and Germans only.”
>
> Trump took the stage about two hours late, prompting people to stream
> toward the exits before he finished speaking. He hit his usual highlights,
> notably undermining Vance’s argument from earlier in the day by saying
> that, indeed, he believes fellow Americans are “the enemy within.”
>
> But Trump perhaps gave away the game with his inflammatory language and
> with an aside, seemingly aimed at House speaker Johnson. “I think with our
> little secret we are gonna do really well with the House, right? Our little
> secret is having a big impact, he and I have a secret, we will tell you
> what it is when the race is over,” Trump said.
>
> It seems possible—probable, even—that Trump was alluding to putting in
> play the plan his people tried in 2020. That plan was to create enough
> chaos over the certification of electoral votes in the states to throw the
> election into the House of Representatives. There, each state delegation
> gets a single vote, so if the Republicans have control of more states than
> the Democrats, Trump could pull out a victory even if he had dramatically
> lost the popular vote.
>
> Since he has made virtually no effort to win votes in 2024, this seems his
> likely plan.
>
> But to do that, he needs at least a plausibly close election, or at least
> to convince his supporters that the election has been stolen from him.
> Tonight’s rally badly hurt that plan.
>
> As Hinchcliffe was talking about Puerto Rico as a floating island of
> garbage, Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris was
> at a Puerto Rican restaurant in Philadelphia talking about her plan to
> spread her opportunity economy to Puerto Rico. She has called for
> strengthening Puerto Rico’s energy grid and making it easier to get permits
> to build there.
>
> After the “floating island of garbage” comment, Puerto Rican superstar
> musician Bad Bunny, who has more than 45 million followers on Instagram,
> posted Harris’s plan for Puerto Rico, and his spokesperson said he is
> endorsing Harris.
>
> Puerto Rican singer and actor Ricky Martin shared a clip from
> Hinchcliffe’s set with his 16 million followers. His caption read: “This is
> what they think of us.” Singer and actress Jennifer Lopez, who has 250
> million Instagram followers, posted Harris’s plan. Later, singer-songwriter
> and actress Ariana Grande posted that she had voted for Harris. Grande has
> 376 million followers on Instagram. Singer Luis Fonsi, who has 16 million
> followers, also called out the “constant hate.”
>
> The headlines were brutal. “MAGA speakers unleash ugly rhetoric at Trump's
> MSG rally,” read Axios. Politico wrote: “Trump’s New York homecoming sparks
> backlash over racist and vulgar remarks.” “Racist Remarks and Insults Mark
> Trump’s Madison Square Garden Rally,” the New York Times announced.
> “Speakers at Trump rally make racist comments, hurl insults,” read CNN.
>
> But the biggest sign of the damage the rally did was the frantic
> backpedaling from Republicans in tight elections, who distanced themselves
> as fast as they could from the insults against Puerto Ricans, especially.
> The Trump campaign itself tried to distance itself from the “floating
> island of garbage” quotation, only to be met with comments pointing out
> that Hinchcliffe’s set had been vetted and uploaded to the teleprompters.
>
> As the clips spread like wildfire, political writer Charlotte Clymer
> pointed out that almost 6 million Puerto Ricans live in the states—about a
> million in Florida, half a million in Pennsylvania, 100,000 in Georgia,
> 100,000 in Michigan, 100,000 in North Carolina, 45,000 in Arizona, and
> 40,000 in Nevada—and that over half of them voted in 2020.
>
> In 1939, as about 18,000 American Nazis rallied inside Madison Square
> Garden, newspapers reported that a crowd of about 100,000 anti-Nazis
> gathered outside to protest. It took 1,700 police officers, the largest
> number of officers ever before detailed for a single event, to hold them
> back from storming the venue.
>
> On Tue, Oct 29, 2024, 6:42 AM Bill Schlesinger via OE <
> oe at lists.wedgeblade.net> wrote:
>
>> It’s hard to respond point by point to demonstrably false statements and
>> charges.  COVID was so much more destructive than it needed to have been –
>> largely due to Trump’s refusal to deal with the science and politicizing
>> responses.  The resistance to immunizations, use of masking (common in
>> other parts of the world) – well, you get the point.  Illusory claims of
>> ‘greatness’ are just that.
>>
>>
>>
>> We may see a Trump victory.  And we need to be prepared to stay at the
>> center, to understand that the order of things in the systems will continue
>> to be a process of persons seeking to create a ‘visionary dream’ – to quote
>> Bonhoeffer – and persons seeking to do what it caring and responsible.  And
>> this is true whether or not we see a Trump victory. We’ll have to work in
>> that world as we do now, with an understanding that we will not conquer by
>> destroying an enemy but by being who we are called to be.
>>
>>
>>
>> Personally, we’ve contributed, voted, and spoken as clearly as we can in
>> the networks and relationships we have.  But our ‘heroes’ aren’t the ones
>> who overthrew a tyranny.  Our ‘heroes’ are those who cared and sustained
>> even while marginalized and attacked.  ‘Lest Innocent Blood be Shed’ is an
>> account of a village that sheltered Jews in France – and did so while being
>> gentle with the Vichy forces.  That led to warnings before raids as even
>> those in the Vichy regime chose to care.
>>
>>
>>
>> Again, FWIW.
>>
>>
>>
>> Bill
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* James Wiegel <jfwiegel at yahoo.com>
>> *Sent:* Monday, October 28, 2024 8:35 PM
>> *To:* Order Ecumenical Community <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
>> *Cc:* w.schlesinger at pvida.net; Mari Crocker <maricrocker at gmail.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Oe List ...] bizarre
>>
>>
>>
>> Watching the world series, I am hit by ads similar to the post forwarded
>> by Susan — 3 1/2 years in office and things didn’t get done and now they
>> will —I dont know how to respond to that … help
>>
>> Jim Wiegel
>>
>> “…the long work
>> of turning their lives
>> into a celebration
>> is not easy. Come and let us talk“.
>>
>> The Sunflowers. Mary Oliver
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 28, 2024, at 5:00 PM, Mari Crocker via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> Amen!  Dear friend, Bill.  Thank you for this, and many other insightful
>> comments you have shared over the years.  Fond memories of the time Joe and
>> I spent with your family, way back, when you were discerning your call.
>> Fondly, Marilyn
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 28, 2024, at 7:22 PM, <w.schlesinger at pvida.net> <
>> w.schlesinger at pvida.net> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> The vice-presidential candidate studied Rene Girard’s work – and betrayed
>> it.  He’s taken mimetic desire (I want what I see others having) and
>> scapegoating (if we get rid of ‘them’ we’ll solve our problems, so let us
>> link arms and attack ‘them’) as recipes for victory instead of the driver
>> for and betrayal of innocent suffering that Girard describes.
>>
>>
>>
>> Trump creates the incredibly powerful tool that ended up crucifying Jesus
>> – and in so doing, disclosed the horror and emptiness of that for the
>> future.  And as has been seen, when one ‘they’ has been disposed, the tool
>> must find another – and turns on itself in a cannibalistic process of
>> eating its own.  Thus the ‘RINO’ charge.
>>
>>
>>
>> Rubbing raw the sores of discontent can lead to this kind of destruction
>> – and in an angry rejection of other values. Attacking it in kind only
>> strengthens the method. Unfortunately, innocent suffering is the only tool
>> that stops it – at cost.  Thus the nonviolence movements of Gandhi and MLK
>> Jr. and others…
>>
>>
>>
>> My two cents.
>>
>>
>>
>> Bill Schlesinger
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* OE <oe-bounces at lists.wedgeblade.net> *On Behalf Of *Mari Crocker
>> via OE
>> *Sent:* Monday, October 28, 2024 5:06 PM
>> *To:* Order Ecumenical Community <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
>> *Cc:* Mari Crocker <maricrocker at gmail.com>
>> *Subject:* Re: [Oe List ...] bizarre
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi W.J and other colleagues
>>
>>
>>
>> I appreciate your analysis, and would add to your assessment of a
>> “cultural backlash against cultural change” and “the perpetuation of the
>> ancient archetype of female subservience,” the side-effects (like those of
>> a deleterious drug)  of "the abused woman syndrome".
>>
>>
>>
>> My sister typifies the abused woman, who continued to submit to abuse by
>> “staying in the marriage for the sake of the kids", and when she shook
>> loose of marital abuse, she submitted to abuse by her sons, who of course
>> learned from the role model of their father.  One son did it by direct
>> physical and emotional demeaning; the other by distancing himself
>> geographically and abdicating any “hands-on” support to his mother when she
>> was diagnosed with dementia, save for an occasional phone call.
>>
>>
>>
>> However, despite her dementia, my sister cast her absentee ballot for
>> Kamala.  Even with dementia she saw the light.
>>
>>
>>
>> Marilyn
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Oct 28, 2024, at 5:45 PM, W. J. via OE <oe at lists.wedgeblade.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>> We're in the closing days of the most bizarre U.S. election campaign in
>> my memory. According to Barack, N.C. Lt. Gov. Robinson, the Repugnant
>> candidate for governor, is a self-described "Black Nazi" who wants to bring
>> back slavery.
>>
>> I know that one's hard to beat!
>>
>> But it gets worse!
>>
>> Robinson will be defeated on November 5, rather than riding into the
>> governor's mansion on the coattails of Trump's predicted N.C. victory.
>>
>> But here's what's worse:
>>
>> Trump could narrowly win in the electoral college while losing the
>> popular vote.
>>
>> Or he could narrowly lose the election, refuse to concede, and contest
>> the election by casting doubt on its legitimacy and creating chaos in the
>> electoral college, throwing the election to the House of Representatives.
>>
>> The critical voter block that will guarantee either outcome are female
>> Trump voters, almost all of whom are white, and most of whom are not
>> college graduates and are predominantly postmenopausal.
>>
>> This raises what is for me a burning question: why would *any woman* vote
>> for Trump?
>>
>> And especially any woman who could conceive?
>>
>> Why would any woman not deeply understand that she is personally under
>> threat the second *any other woman* is personally under threat?
>>
>> As well as being a member of a large group that is now directly under
>> attack?
>>
>> I just don't get it.
>>
>> So, given the racial and gender gap in the American electorate, even if
>> *every* white male voted for Donald Trump, he would *have to lose* if
>> every female plus every person of color voted for Kamala. Right?
>>
>> Based on this logic, the reality that I just can't predict that Trump
>> will lose is deeply disturbing.
>>
>> So I've tried to plumb the mystery of why *any* female (including my
>> sister, who has voted for Trump twice before) would be determined to vote
>> for Trump despite all the indisputable evidence that electing Trump in 2024
>> would be disastrous.
>>
>> I think it comes down to this: *a cultural backlash against global
>> change that is perceived as both virtually inevitable and threatening to
>> the survival of their traditional female gender identity roles.*
>>
>> This perception of a diffuse but global threat to their sense of security
>> in their traditional sense of self can lead female Trump voters to
>> unconsciously self-destructive behavior, in that they can vote for Trump
>> while at the same hating him personally as the embodiment of a threatening
>> male dominance that they have had to put up with in their intimate familial
>> relationships.
>>
>> In short, females voting for Trump perpetuate the ancient archetype of
>> female subservience.
>>
>> In my humble opinion!
>>
>> So why are any female voters so profoundly stuck in this personal
>> dilemma? Of rebelling against the dominance of a male establishment by
>> voting for a fascist wanna-be dictator who exudes a shrunken and impotent
>> sense of male dominance while he attacks the American Constitution?
>>
>> Perhaps those of you who are female can see more deeply into this
>> contradiction than I can manage.
>>
>> The best I can suggest is to place this existential disturbance somewhere
>> in the area of "cultural impoverishment", and perhaps in the category of
>> being "spiritually vulnerable" to what we used to call "brainwashing". And
>> thus resistant to reality-based messages that contradict personal beliefs
>> that are determined by a myth system.
>>
>> I invite your responses.
>>
>> And if you're a registered voter, don't neglect to vote!
>>
>>
>>
>> Marshall
>>
>>
>>
>> Finally, I just can't get why any woman in our group would insist on
>> trashing Kamala. Yet here's what Susan Fertig posted on Facebook:
>>
>>
>>
>> <457488282_2891520291010734_7975706897851416784_n.jpg>
>>
>>
>>
>> P.S. Maybe Trump thinks of the electoral college as another iteration of
>> Trump University! A scam he can manipulate to get what he wants.
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
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