Weaver's Web

<sigh>

 I spent more time this year working for political change than since I was in my 20s.   In January & February I canvassed door to door for Warren.   don’t wanna think how many miles I walked going door to door.   I just remember my ankles telling me, “this had better be worth it.”  After lockdown, there was phone banking.   I’ve always been a believer that politics is local and that my action needs to be local.   I no longer hold to that.   Not since my rights were stepped on during Prop 8, when forces from outside California funded the most vicious ads on our airwaves to deny not only the rights of my community to marry, but to undo my own already existent marriage.   How dare you tell lies about me.

In September & October, I journeyed virtually to Pennsylvania, spending day after day phone banking in the get out the vote effort there.   Vote Save America sponsored an adopt a state program and I opted for Pennsylvania. The adage tgat the state is Philadelphia in the East, Pittsburgh in the West, with Alabama in between isn’t all that far off.   Remember the Mason Dixon line is the boarder between Pennsylvania with Maryland & W, Virginia.   All this month, I moved my efforts to virtual, near daily travel to Georgia, in the get out the vote effort there for the Senate runoffs, jointing  NextGen, Fair Fight & the New Georgia Project.  

Personally, while I was unsurprised of the outcome in November in Pennsylvania given all the positive conversations I had in the 7 weeks prior to Election Day, I still feel the effort I put in, along with volunteers from all over the country, helped the cause significantly.   Similarly, the last month in Georgia, the determination I heard from the Metro areas of Altanta, Macon, Savannah, & Columbus, kept me calling.   I felt good about making sure folks knew, where and how to register, when to get their votes posted by mail or dropped off, and how to find their polling place.   I cannot tell you how any times I got told, “we have to get this done!”   At times I was unsure who was bolstering who I this effort. Yes, there were plenty of “please stop calling me”, but almost as many offered their thanks for what I was doing. 

Went to bed last night relieved, Warnock having been declared the winner by the AP, and Ossoff holding a 3,600 vote lead with the majority of the outstanding ballots predominantly from Democratic urban bastions.  Again I was unshocked, but deeply grateful.   In September, I had felt confident the Senate would flip; I thought a minimum of 4 seats would change.   I was dashed after the election, certain that although Biden wound take the White House, that McConnell would prevent and significant change in the new Senate and quash any attempt for progress in DC.   Early on, I had serious doubts Georgia would flip the Senate.   I went to sleep with incredible relief.  

Today started with great hope, thinking last night’s Georgia news would be the main news story of the day.   The staged drama in the House & Senate of objections to the acceptance of the ballots cast in the Electoral College might come in a close second.   Instead, the news story of the day was a riot incited by the President.  I’m incredulous.   Protesters breeched the Capital, while both the House & Senate were in session no less.   Someone died in the course of the protests, a woman shot inside the Capital.   They smashed windows and there are photos of them closing in on and chasing solitary capital policemen. I was struck that many of the police were people of color; I saw no protestors they were not white.   Not one.   I was also struck the difference in the police response to white conservative protesters, in comparison to say how the protesters were treated the day the President decided to hold up a Bible in front of a church near the White House. 

The insanity promoted by this charlatan in the White House cannot be over soon enough.  I pray the state of NY is ready to indict him January 21.

I remain both dumbfounded and incredulous. I am not at all surprised that we are moving to an impeachment of the president. What does still astound me is that there is such a wide gulf in acceptance of the president’s overt corruption, which breaks along strict political lines.

With organizations that masquerade as news in this country (Breitbart/Fox News/Sinclair), it really is a case where the public has to decide between “alternative facts” as presented by public media.

I can except that individuals may have their own perspective which will color their own judgment as to the truth, but those biases are poisoning this country. In evidence I point to what happened in Speaker of the house,Nancy Pelosi’s press conference this morning, where as she was exiting the room, she was asked by a journalist if she hated the president. That shouted question stopped her in her tracks & brought her back to the mic where she excoriated that man journalist saying, “that as a good Catholic, she prays daily for the president, with love in her heart.“ That journalist was from Sinclair broadcast, an organization that by my assessment stands to the right of Fox News and perhaps even Breitbart.

“Everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” (Senator Daniel Patrick Moynahan), comes to mind. That Trump attempted to extort The president of the Ukraine into giving him a political advantage over a rival is patently obvious. He publicly asked for Russia to interfere in the 2016 election on national TV &He has already requested publicly that China start an investigation on the Bidens. If that isn’t an abuse of power and his office, I cannot imagine what it is. Not that Fox News/Sinclair broadcast/Breitbart want us to see it that way. Hence, the need for questions publicly like “does Nancy Pelosi hate the president“.

An aside, I just found out an interesting fact; anybody care to guess who the first two members of Congress were to endorse Donald Trump and his run for the White House in 2016? Answer: Representative Chris Collins of New York and Duncan Hunter of California. If those names are familiar then you’ve probably been paying attention to the news representative Collins was convicted of insider trading, has been removed from his house seat and is going to jail. Duncan Hunter recently pled guilty to using campaign funds to pay for personal household expenses, is resigning from Congress and is awaiting sentencing along with his wife, who has also pled guilty. Corrupt recognizes corrupt.

I will admit to schadenfreude. I am grateful to see both Collins and Hunter out of Congress. They were cancers on this political body. I will be even more grateful to see the malignancy-in-chief out of power, though I have a little hope impeachment will remove him. Impeachment is a necessity as a check on presidential malfeasance, even though it is likely to fail in his removal, given tribal politics that put party before country. For the sake of the safety of this country and this world, next November he must NOT be returned to office for another term.

I only look white.

Ruddy complexion, curly auburn hair, now starting to grey. "What part of Ireland is your family from," isn't a rare question. Apparently I'm a LIBI - looks Irish, but isn't.

My minority identity is pretty strong. My family is Jewish, both sides. All 4 of my grandparents were emigrants & while they learned it as children, English was a second language for both my parents. Even I heard more than just English as a child. My family came here to escape European antisemitism. The States weren't devoid of antisemític sentiments. They just weren't what they were in Europe. Your prospects were much brighter here than there. The bulk of my father's family succeeded in coming over. Sadly, not the story for my mother's family. Particularly hard hit was my maternal grandmother's family. The town she was from was taken off the map by the Nazis. It no longer exists. The only two to survive were my grandmother and her eldest brother, the only two that were here in the states prior to the war.

Both my father and his brother wanted to become physicians. My uncle succeeded, although he was most of the way through a PhD program before he was able to get a seat in a medical school at the same midwestern public university. Despite graduating summa cum from Syracuse University with a dual major in political science and bio chemistry, my father wasn't able to gain entry to either medical or law school in this country in the early 1950s. Why did he go to Syracuse? Simple. They were one of the private universities willing to accept Jews in 1948. (Incidentally, Jerry Stiller was one of my father's fraternity brothers.)

Growing up in the safety of New York City's "melting pot" I never feared for my safety because of my ethnicity, the basic safety in numbers. However, after my grandfather's death, post a long battle with lung cancer in the summer of 1968, my parents took us on a road trip from New York to Florida. I was 13. We pulled off the interstate somewhere in the rural Georgia, to stop for gas and something to eat. Walking into a country diner, we sat and patiently waited for service. Though my mother is a blue-eyed blonde, Pop had the map of eastern Europe for a face & my youngest sister had a gold star of David hanging on her neck. After 20 minutes, a waitress sauntered over, leaned over to speak quietly to my mother, who was seated next to me. With a saccharine drawl over pursed lips she said, "we don't serve your kind here. I suggest you take your children and leave, before something untowards happens." With the nod of her head, she gestured over her shoulder towards two rather large men in overalls seated at the counter, both of whom glared menacingly in our direction. We left, leaving behind a piece of my innocence. Years later, I would read about lynchings of Jews, including one in outside of Atlanta in 1915 & feel much more comfortable with my parents move to retreat. .מאָדנע פרוכט (strange fruit.)

Most associate the KKK with the American south, but historically they've flexed their muscle in areas far flung. How about in Queens, New York in 1927? There was a march & with a riot that followed. Post riot, a number of people were arrested, including Fred Trump. That name familiar? It should be. He's the Donald's father. Perhaps this explains the president's tepid response condemning the recent events in Charlottesville, claiming both sides were to blame for the violence, where a young woman peacefully protesting was killed by a supremacist who plowed his van into the crowd, ala an ISIS inspired attack.

One of the Charlottesville synagogues had three white supremacists, armed with semi automatic rifles standing across the street while their congregation met for services Saturday morning. I guess simply being a person of color, or Jewish appears to be provocation. They got to listen to those man screaming for people to burn down the synagogue as the congregation stood there in worship. (A letter from the rabbi of my sister's congregation in New Jersey of her communication with the congregation in Charlottesville will be posted to follow this post. Please do read it.)

I am clearer now than ever that I am a minority person, who is not safe within the borders of my own country. That we have a president who cannot unequivocally and immediately condemn in no uncertain terms, racial and ethnic hatred as antithetical to everything this country stands for, gives me great pause. Reality is he is both a cause and a symptom of the pervasive underlying bigotry that still exists in a large portion of this country. There is no racial, ethnic, religious, or social minority within this country he is unwilling to throw under the bus, if it suits his needs & sadly enough, he has a like minded community to preach to.

We must work in coalition and unity to stand up for what is right. Jew must support Muslim, who must support Hispanic, who must support African-American, who must support LGBT, who must support women, who must support environmentalist, who must support Native American, and so on, and so on. We must speak with clarity when we speak truth to power. Anything less insures our failure, if not out right subjugation.

I'm angry. I'm angry at the turn of events in this country which feel incredibly hostile to anyone identified as "the other". As much as it pains me to say it, it feels to me right this moment if you are not white, Anglo, heterosexual, cis-gendered, Christian, & a native English speaker, the United States has become incredibly unwelcoming, if not out right hostile. Is it being driven by our current president, or is he simply a symptom of a larger malaise within this country?

With the change in the administrations, we have gone from 'class' to crass, from the audacity of hope, to simple audacity, from a society that was moving towards inclusivity, to one now turning it's back & embracing exclusivity. The more I watch Donald Trump, the more I ask how in the name of Sam Hill did this man get elected? He seems to vary from bigot, to buffoon, to bully all within the space of a single paragraph. My response to almost everything I hear him say is either to cringe, shake my head, or want to throw something. It's painful when I respect the office and yet hold no respect for the man who currently holds it.

As I alluded earlier, that I keep hearing people support him, & actually cheering his actions on, doesn't just sadden and disappoint me, it scares the bejeezus out of me. I may be white, but I'm neither a Christian,l nor heterosexual, and while an American citizen, I'm the child of an immigrant family. Having lost the bulk of my mother's family during the holocaust, as they did not have the wherewithal to get out, I find myself asking if this new president is a harbinger of still worse to come? Will we as nation rise up and fight back, or is it time for people like me to start thinking about getting out?

Meryl Streep was given the lifetime achievement award at the Golden Globes. Well deserved, if you ask me. She is an amazing talent, a virtual chameleon, with an enormous body of work stretching back to the 70's.

She criticized the president elect last night from the pulpit the Globes gave her, again spot on criticism that was well deserved if you ask me. I'd recommend watching her comments in their entirety and judge for yourselves if she isn't spot on in her take.

https://youtu.be/NxyGmyEby40

Of course this morning, the president elect struck back on his favorite platform, Twitter.

Fasten your seatbelt friends; the next 4 years are gonna be a very bumpy ride.

—adjective

1. (of speech, writing, etc.) high-sounding; high-flown; inflated; pretentious.

syn.: Trump-like

Origin: 1695–1705; bombast + -ic


Mexico is going to pay for a border wall? Really?

You're going to win the Hispanic vote? No one has better relations with the Hispanics than you do? You really do live on Planet Trump, don't you?

First of all, the moment you define any racial/ethnic group with a "the" you imply they're one monolithic group. What you show us is how little you really understand true diversity, or worse, how little the people you're working to appeal to, do. Secondly, governing means building consensus, finding solutions that meet community needs, not actively pushing wedges between communities playing people against one another. Lastly, elections are about meeting societal needs and goals, not entertainment. They're for defining & shaping our future.

Your vision sir, both offends & frightens me.