Hekate
Hekate's JournalThere was a nasty kerfuffle at DU year before last over the book collection of Seuss's WW II toons
According to some, his wartime efforts on behalf of the US could only be viewed through today's sensibilities, with no reference to historical nuance or to the fact that there might be some lessons to be drawn for our time. No, no, all those beloved children's books from The Cat in the Hat to The Butter Battle Book to The Lorix needed to be thrown on the ash heap of history as the products of a nasty racist mind.
It kind of bemused (and disheartened) me to see the ignorance on display. My after school cartoon fare in the 1950s was well-sprinkled with reruns of WW II era Loony Tunes (and others) characters kicking Tojo's ass and punching out Hitler. As of 9-11 all those old themes returned in new dress.
I picked up a copy of the WW II Seuss book at the public library a few months ago and leafed through it, shaking my head. All those cartoons about the America First movement could be printed today, and then some. The US has always had a strain of (white) nativism, ignorant populism, and isolationism, some eras worse than others. Seuss drew what he saw. We see it back again today, bolder and nastier than ever.
Seuss was no more racist than any propagandist. He caricatured ignorant Americans as well as our (then) mortal enemies. To a great extent He drew what he saw.
When my husband says: "Why didn't we move to Canada during BushCheney?!" My response always
...is: "We would have missed out on Barack Obama." I mean that -- those were 8 years of grace and a chance to build again. But as I often said here, only a chance, and so much depended on other people than Obama -- like us, and like the good will of the GOP. Thus America blew the chance.
Right now is possibly the worst and most perilous time in our history, and it is hard as hell to see any good in the future. My husband and I are 70 -- so same age cohort as you, MN. I have no advice to give except to hang on, check in here, and occasionally check to see what the Resistance is doing. There's an awful lot of younger people involved, and women are popping up all over the country filing to run for political offices.
In other words, when Hillary Clinton's chances at the presidency were murdered in cold blood, the story was by NO means over.
600,000 people marched in Los Angeles this weekend, 200,000 in New York, and more across the country. At every rally there were not just speakers but activists at card tables registering people to vote and handing out information and showing how to participate.
That's where my hope is residing. May we all live to see our democracy and republic renewed. 
The CCCP built so many Trojan Horses at our gates...
And we just wheeled them in.
The laugh-because-you-don't-want-to-cry irony of the NRA being punked is the gun-worshippers oft-stated creed that they are defending our freedoms. What they need to do is contemplate the First Amendment and use their brains.
We left home at 11pm with the clothes on our backs and weren't able to move back for 2 weeks...
Ventura was badly hurt; the fire came down into the city right to the back lot of City Hall. We moved here from Goleta last September, so we have connections up and down the Central Coast and have been close to fire before, but not quite so personally.
Our neighborhood was lucky, as only one house was lost despite our little valley being blackened all over. Firefighters saved us. Other neighborhoods where we looked at houses for sale last year are just gone.
Our adult kids in Santa Barbara had to evacuate as well; worse for our daughter as she had a baby just out of the NICU and was fully in the smoke at Montecito.
Rain. Ventura was lucky. We only got half an inch spread out over many hours. We were in the voluntary evac zone, and I stared at the blackened and denuded hill right across the street from us with my fingers crossed while my husband refused to budge and told me of the excellent drainage on our street.
Montecito, where our daughter lives, got a "cell" wherein the half inch came down on the kiln-forged and denuded hills in 5 minutes, and then more, and I think another "cell." Many in the voluntary evacuation zone were swept away. She lives in a rental on high ground, and was spared. But friends of hers have lost their lives and others whose houses were saved from the fire have now lost their homes. She is in a state of shock and mourning.
I showed my husband some of the FB posts from survivors' cell phones -- the wall of mud and debris came on like a tsunami, absolutely no way to escape. He said he would leave next time we get such an order, but between you and me, since we have two cars, I won't wait for his decision if he hesitates again.
Highway 101 is closed indefinitely between here and there.
Pussyfooting means treading softly like a cat. Always has ...
Trump dragged the secondary meaning out of the gutter and into our living rooms, and here we are.
Nonetheless, pull a Mother Goose volume off your children's bookshelf and find:
1). Pussycat, pussycat, where have you been?
I've been to London to visit the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you there?
I frightened a little mouse under her chair.
2). Ding-dong bell, pussy's in the well.
Who put her in? Little Tommy Green.
Who pulled her out? Little Bobby Stout.
What a naughty boy was that,
To try to drown poor pussycat,
Who never did him any harm,
But killed the mice in Father's barn.
They came in a wave during the Potato Famine, destitute, illiterate, starved, sick...
The ships were called coffin ships because of the high incidence of typhus aboard. Public health officials at ports in Canada and the US quarantined the ships offshore as a (for real) public health hazard. One of my ancestors started out with her whole family and ended up with just one sister by the time they landed in Canada. They then lied their way across the border into the US.
Illiterate? Mostly. As punisment for Irish obduracy in clinging to Roman Catholicism and refusing to convert to English Protestantism, Irish schools were closed and forbidden.
In the worst assessments, Irish immigrants were considered "apelike" and "incapable of assimilation."
It's a pity all the "white" people in this country don't remember how their ancestors were received when they got here, and practice a whole lotta empathy for newer arrivals.
Hmmm
People are awake -- Hillary WON, for one thing. Also, you may not have noticed the Women's March last year? It was not a one-off, but the beginning of a wave of women signing up to run for political office all over the country.
Did you sign up for Indivisible? Are you following your Senator and Congresscritter on FB? Are you signed up for the "flash" protests nationwide in the event that Mueller is fired?
This nation will not be finished until we stop Resisting and Persisting.
I am reminded of the cardboard sign I saw in a photo from a major airport after the infamous Muslim Ban. "FIRST THEY CAME FOR THE MUSLIMS, AND WE SAID: NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKERS."
Enough with the FUD. Not today, Donkeypoofed.
Not today. Resist. When we stop resisting, it's over. It ain't over.
Show up. Resist.
Persist.
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Gender: FemaleHometown: Central Coast, California
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