Sessions/Trump are, effectively, human traffickers

They are taking children at the border and exchanging them for votes. They are wrenching them violently from their parents, shoving them screaming into vans and holding them against their will in facilities with darkened windows (which even Senator Jeff Merkley was prevented from entering yesterday to check on their welfare).

See link below. Daily Kos shares some cynical graphics to underscore this point – and it is the most vivid truth of this entire, sick, American moral collapse. I can't sleep.

Resist daily.

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/1768726

?1527873248

US Border Patrol is out of control

Daily Kos covers the point plank killing of a young woman by US Border Patrol. This is not the first time and it has to stop. Police abuse – and executions – of minorities has to stop. Now. It is the cruelest, sickest, grossest thing I've ever imagined possible. A young person struggling to escape poverty, only to be shot and killed by a North American – for HIDING from his gun!

As Avenatti says, "Basta!" (enough!)

START GETTING YOUR NEIGHBORS READY TO VOTE IN A LANDSLIDE THIS NOVEMBER!!!

TALK TO EVERYONE! Every retailer, every neighbor!

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/1767023

And I'd like to add this link to a story in the Washington Press about our sick, sick, sick President separating children from their parents (and losing track of 1,500 of the kids, some to human traffickers):

https://washingtonpress.com/2018/05/24/trump-has-just-begun-forcing-detained-immigrants-to-wear-yellow-insignias/

Unscientific bias towards "moderates" by political establishment may lead to fewer votes

A sober, peer-reviewed article in The Legislative Studies Quarterly suggests that political establishments may be hampering the GOTV effort. There's a bias towards "moderate" candidates which is intuitive and not very strategic.

Principled Moderation: Understanding Parties’ Support of Moderate Candidates
By Hans J.G. Hassell
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/lsq.12197

Washington Post: The Democrats' most salient, combustive and unifying idea

At this stage it's not about Warren, Booker, De Blasio or Sanders. It's about understanding the underlying forces at work in this country... about empathy for the millions of people such forces are affecting.

It's about putting forth a vision that can shed light on all the other issues. May the Democrats work together to forge this unifying vision.

Washington Post:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/hey-democrats-whats-the-big-idea/2018/05/15/daab0926-5880-11e8-858f-12becb4d6067_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.3c083d079c81

"I feel like I've been tricked by the devil"

So some Republicans can think... when up against naked, self-serving, reality:

Raw Story:
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/05/feel-stupid-trump-supporters-tricked-devil-now-facing-financial-ruin/

Just drove a large hand-made sign into the heartland

(And I came out alive).

I taped four manila folders together and wrote a big bold sign that stretched all the way across the bumper of my 2012 Honda Civic. Then I drove from NJ to Illinois and back to visit my son. This is what I wrote in all caps:

WHILE CITIZENS CLASH
THE 1% TAKES THE CASH
VOTE DEMS NOV. 6

And then for good measure, to really confuse the occasional evangelical, I squeezed into the corner:

"Love thy neighbor." – Jesus

As I drove for two days west and two days east, I entertained myself by passing cars and trucks with a slowdown just as my sign became visible. I calculated that if 2-3 people per minute saw that sign, I reached 3–4,000 folks over the entire journey. Multiply that by the conversations I started and the cell phone pix uploaded on Instagram and Facebook. (I slowed down especially to aid the meme-making process).

There were no threatening gestures. My car was totally unscathed.

We're gonna win.

On the Limits of News Consumption

I believe this online forum offers a good service, a clearing house of sorts for a lot of news (and there's a lot!)

However I'm feeling a certain sadness welling up in me that this community isn't quite as activist and progressive as I had expected. The term "underground", at least since Dostoyevsky's "Notes from Underground", has always resonated with me, but I see more of a mainstream political culture at work here. I'm all for the Democratic party and have great faith in our ability to get out the vote this November and beyond. (You should see the hand-painted sign on the back of my Honda Civic) But the DU seems less about strategizing HOW to inspire voters, and HOW to evolve the Democratic vision, than about something involving news gathering and consuming. It's passive observation of what a horror the Republicans have become rather than a platform for deep dialogue, self-analysis and culture change.

DU's preponderance of news updates and tweet updates is often useful, but doesn't seem to lead to calls for action or serious discussions about social and cultural practices. Whenever I or others have tried to propose actions in this forum (such as anxious calls fir the white community to wake up to its complicity in black oppression) they seem uninteresting to this community. Very few recommendations occur – as if efforts to make change in the streets is less entertaining than the latest Trump-World gaff, or Muellarian sleight of hand. (And believe me, I'm praying for Muellar).

So where's the encouragement of creative resistance? Where's the colorful street actions of Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping? Why is Occupy Wall Street, one of the most profound change agents in our generation, often treated like a gadfly? I was physically there, and in the Philly version, and covered it for a local newpaper. That movement made criticism of corporations and the 1% normative. It broke through our bottled up national fear of discussing class issues. But the flippant comments I've seen about Occupy and other people's actions are often pretty dispiriting. Does anyone understand what I'm talking about?

There's a lot of righteous cussin' on DU, but it's quite en vogue these days (a la Louis CK and Dave Chapelle). I don't get a sense of the deeper human rights movement here (something I was immersed in growing up), nor any flickerings of the creative community cooking up (in our little underground lab), new ideas for the future.

You really shouldn't take offense at these comments, friends. Self-criticism is healthy in a democracy. I could begin with myself and admit to a certain stridency. I could also point out that it's due to losing one job after another, and then my family, due to 9/11, the exploitation of adjunct professors, and being a whistle blower against a corrupt CEO.

So, yeah, I want to see a little more creative noise and invention and strategizing for change. But maybe a different forum would be the logical solution. In the end the Democratic Underground is largely a news clearing house rather than an underground resistance group. There's nothing wrong with that, but I wish it was more proactive and less reactive. More progressive and inventive and less about wagging fingers at Republicans (as unnerving as they may be!)

Any suggestions for change? Or keep the status quo and send this angry American street activist out of the clubhouse?

With love,
Democracy Mouse

White people, wake up! Start supporting your black brothers and sisters.

Boycott LA Fitness too!!!

I and a gazillion others called for a boycott of Starbucks last week and the upsurge seems to have prompted a positive response by Starbucks within days. To be fair, the company was inclined to right a wrong. They understood the horror of one of its outlets causing the unjust arrest of two black US citizens who were simply waiting for a friend before buying coffee (has anyone pointed out how POLITE and considerate that actually was and the opposite of any reason to kick them out?).

So check out the link below. Here's an LA Fitness outlet denying the entry of an African American for no reason whatsoever. He was a paid member of the club!

Boycott LA Fitness. Boycott ANY corporation which isn't actively fixing our F-d up culture. Just by BEING a large, impersonal corporation they are draining our culture of small-scale civility. If they aren't actively re-building a positive culture (like putting the vitamins back in the mass-produced bread), they have a sum negative impact on society (in my opinion, but based on a lot of sociology).

Check out the following link... and boycott LA Fitness! We certainly can't rely on our current president, or status quo corporations, to change our culture for the better:

https://www.rawstory.com/2018/04/watch-black-man-blocked-entering-nj-gym-hes-paid-member-even-cops-confused/

Boycott Starbucks

In response to the arrest of two innocent black men in a Philly Starbucks (while waiting for a friend to turn up), I suggest we boycott EVERY Starbucks and start supporting local, family-owned diners.

Walk in, tell them they are being boycotted for treating two wonderful US citizens in Philadelphia like dirt, and walk out. If they say "it wasn't OUR starbucks" then tell them this:

"Your organization has consistently portrayed people of color as field laborers in your wall photos. Most if the authors in your older Starbucks murals are white. Last, but not least, you treat your employees like cultural illiterates who can't choose the music in the café. At the end of the day you're just another US corporation founded on the exploitation of slaves and poor whites."

And bonus points if you say: "Your pseudo-bohemian veneer doesn't fool me and my attachment to your dark roast is now kind of embarassing to me if you catch my drift."

Links to story:
https://www.google.com/amp/www.philly.com/philly/news/starbucks-philadelphia-police-viral-video-investigation-race-20180414.html%3famphtml=y

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/starbucks-philadelphia-police-viral-video-investigation-race-20180414.html?mobi=true