What If We Threw a Rally and Nobody Came? Realism and Cynicism in Charlottesville

Joy cometh in the morning....

Yesterday was horrible.  As we examine the aftermath of what happened in Charlottesville we are seeing some pretty simple things that can be pieced together only in the light of the morning.  Three people are now dead in the wake of this event and many more injured.  This did not start on Thursday.  It started years ago of course.  It started before Donald Trump was even born.

We cannot regale you with the history of racism in America nor can we hope to disentangle who did what and when and why back then.

This whole thing started the moment someone thought of the idea to have a rally.  The rub comes in the difference between what was said and what is intended.  These are the things that no one is talking about.

What was said was "Let's have a rally where we express our views because we are fast becoming a minority in our own country and we are disenfranchised white people!"  What was actually being said either in their own head or aloud in meetings or on social media was:
We are going to have this rally and stoke up hatred and anger until a fight breaks out.  That way, once we enrage people so much that they throw the first punch, we can say that we did not start it but we will be justified in fighting, and possibly even shooting and killing them.

Then a supposed liberal "Anti-Fa" heard about the rally and immediately began to make plans to go.  This person went out and bought all the gear; helmets, baseball bats for "self defense" even though their mere presence would incite anger.  They were going to fight.  They bought mace.

Then came the screaming match leading up to the event.  People on both sides were saying they were going to be there and the message on both sides said:
I dare anyone to touch me as I scream in their face and call them names! Although I know they will!

The voices began to meld, left and right.
I'm gonna start a fight!
I'm gonna start a fight!
I'm gonna start a fight!

I will start a fight! I will be on TV.  I will be on Youtube!

What about the issue?  Who cares!  This is a chance for me to be popular.  How many "likes" will I get for being there!  This is the new party.  This is new rave!

James Alex Fields Jr. planned to drive his car into a crowd of people.  When exactly he had the idea, who knows.  His lawyers will tell him when it will sound best to say he had the idea.  Did he plan it weeks in advance or was he so irritated at the actual rally that he just went back to his car and decided then?  Temporary insanity or premeditation?   A lot of things will be said, but who knows.

We knew it was going to happen.  Everyone could see it coming from a mile away.  We all made it happen.  There were no unintended consequences.  We have made the payoff too enticing.  Fame.

People were posting about the event all day and night, waiting to get a glimpse of some violence.  People saw other people and got closer and closer and those who could not get on tv broke out the cell phones and selfie sticks and said "Look at me!  I am here! I am doing something!"

Peace and understanding were the last thing that we wanted at this thing and the moment Fields Jr., turned the ignition on the car that drove through the crowd was the moment everyone got what they wanted.  Someone was going to get hit.  Someone was going to the hospital.  The chances were more slim that someone was going to die, but there was still a chance.  It was more likely than not and became more so as he pressed down on the accelerator.

Then when it happened, did people drop their cameras and help? Nope.  Many people kept filming. The first video to hit showed a man angling for position when the car struck the crowd.  He was holding his phone in his hand screaming for someone to call 911 as he worked to get a better angle.  He yelled at the cops for not being there as they came to see what had happened.  Take a moment to let that sink in.

Anyone watching as it happened saw that there was a rush to be the first.  The same article posted on numerous sites over and over without any in depth analysis, just "I was there." or "I am so sad."

The messages then evolved and the topics migrated.  The simple message of being anti-white supremacist turned into discussions of how gays and women and even white people are affected by these events and it became "Ooooh a thing is happening to someone else and is trending, how can I apply it to me and the thing I want to talk about?"  It was amazing how quickly the memes showed up.   People read or watched it and said, "This is sad.  I have to capture it in picture form making sure to put my watermark on it in case it starts trending."

Politicians and celebrities spoke up.  It is a relatively safe position.  "Hating minorities is bad and aligning yourself with a movement that hundreds of thousands of people gave their lives to defeat, is not American." The governor called for them to get out.

The President, of course, could not do that, causing the issue and the message once again to morph into simple condemnation of his lack of spine.  We asked if he is trying not to alienate his base?  David Duke was kind enough to remind him that he was essentially elected by those Nazis.

But what if no one showed up?  What if we just let them walk around in circles, shouting?  What if we saved the gas money that was spent for some driving hundreds of miles and put it towards funding another cause we believed in?  What if we threw a rally and nobody came?  That was not an option.  Everyone there was looking for a fight, either to get in one or see one.

The only good thing is that lightning rarely strikes twice.  For all of the bluster, there were a relative few people there.  The numbers are not in yet but only a few thousand people showed up.  Given the results of this event two things will likely happen.  First, zealous people will attempt to duplicate the event in numerous places and dilute the numbers and the same goes for people on the other side.  Rather than have numerous groups getting past their desires to lead the event and forming one large group, what will likely happen will be numerous small events events and people's attention spans and willingness to engage will wane exponentially each day.

In a week or two, no one will remember and we will be on to the next thing.  Selfies will get fewer likes and a new atrocity will appear.  Trayvon who?  Can you believe it's been three years since Michael Brown was shot?

Confessions of a recovering Anger Porn Addict

I am a recovering anger porn addict...

The first step is admitting there is a problem.
This morning I got a notice about an incident in Atlanta where a server at a local restaurant treated the guest badly and was not tipped.  The guests were black women and the server was a homosexual male.  It is funny to look at the different versions of what played out.  It turns out that the women did not tip the server and he in turn gave his partner the receipt who went on to track down the women and send them a series of harassing messages as well as post their slight on social media.  The day after the incident that happened three weeks ago, the owner of the restaurant came in on his day off to personally fire the server, ban him from the restaurant, and issue the guest a gift certificate.  Problem solved?  Well yes, but I just heard about this incident this morning so what does that mean?  That means that people are still trying to push this narrative and are still very mad about an issue that was addressed and remedied.  People are still calling for the boycott of this particular restaurant...three weeks after the incident.

John McCain made a scarred return to the floor of the Senate to vote to move the Republican Health Care Bill forward.  He delivered a stirring speech about the responsibilities of the Senate and the imperative that we move forward,  Cue the anger.

Many people were angry that he was even able to speak about these issues.  People brought up the fact that he would not be there making that speech but for having great health care himself.  McCain's speech was largely self effacing and looked at the fact that he was guilty of engaging in purely partisan hackery himself, but above all it was time to get on to doing what the people sent them there to do.   And then he went and voted for the bill to move forward.

Regardless of what happened next, the speech was rousing and spoke to a lot of the issues that are holding up so many issues in our country.  Aside from that, there was really nothing in the speech that contradicted him then going to vote to put the Republican's bill or lack thereof to a vote and amendment.  He even said he would not vote for the bill as it was and later, he didn't (he voted no in spectacular fashion, but...) The backlash from the left was swift.

What we are seeing is a need or want to be outraged and angry.  Looking at the things that have happened in the last week could give you an anger overdose.  Trump is trying to ban transgender people from the military.  He is trying to fire the Attorney General or maybe not.  He is trying to fire the independent counsel or maybe not.  More young black people are getting shot and or harassed by the police (even as I am writing this, a notice appeared in my feed telling me that Trump endorsed police brutality in a speech).  Women are getting discriminated against and on and on and on.

I wonder about the things that are showing up in my Facebook feed along with a message that says essentially "like" this if this  post makes you angry. Are these the things that I bring on myself based on what I look for and at?

More than that, what are we supposed to do with all of this anger?  Let's take a moment to look at what we are seeing even from the White House and the new communications director.  Anthony Scaramucci apparently called Ryan Lizza at the New Yorker just to complain about how hard his new job is and how everyone is out to get him... Oh and how everyone ELSE is paranoid.

Apparently, he hates Reince Priebus.  Reince hates him. They both hate Steve Bannon and he hates them both.

Are we not playing into his hands?  Note in his recent speeches he is talking a great deal about what the media will say when he makes a comment, signaling that he knows that what is about to come out of his mouth is going to be divisive.  During one of his recent speeches, he said "he could be on Mt. Rushmore."  I doubt it will ever happen but what was most telling was what he said before that.  He made it a point to say that the media would skew his words.  He is at times leaving his language intentionally vague and annoying so that people will pick it apart and find something to get mad about.

He will say something angry and hateful and immediately his army of surrogates go out to tell liberals that we did not hear what we heard so not to get up in arms about it and that same army of surrogates will go out to tell conservatives that they heard EXACTLY what he said and that we liberals just don't get it.

Hate is starting to be profitable, too.  As soon as Trump banned transgender people from serving, there was a race to get to Youtube.  Tomi Lahren could not even wait to get to any kind of studio so she appears to have posted a video from her car about how the military is not a social experiment.  I might note how she posted this from the safety of her car while transgender people are knee deep in sand and dodging bullets and IED's wondering if their country even wants them there as we speak.  How do I know she posted this video?  Rest assured it is not because I am a Tomi Lahren fan, but because someone I know posted a video from someone who posted a video rebuttal to her.

And then comes the posts and reposts.  "So and so shuts down so and so on Twitter" or "So and so just responded to so and so and the the response was epic!"

Over and over and over and over again.  I find myself in a constant state of anger over something but I also find myself wondering what we are going to do about it for the next three years.  Impeachment may be coming, but not for some time.  We have some victories coming but when all is said and done, what good is all this anger doing?  Do I have the energy and the adrenaline?

Oh, and by the way... Reince Priebus just resigned...was fired...at 5:00 p.m. on a Friday... *sigh*

And Anthony Scaramucci's wife filed for divorce....*sigh*

Trump: Strength in the Negative

A couple of weeks ago, Donald Trump told The Christian Broadcasting Network that Vladimir Putin wanted Hillary Clinton to win.  I have to say that I agree with him.  Rather, it is not so much that Putin wanted her to win, but that he did not anticipate her loss.  In that respect, he is a lot like me, the rest of the world, and most of all, Donald Trump himself.


To understand this we have to look at the world the way that Donald Trump and Putin see the world; in the negative.  Their power comes from two places.  First there is what they say has happened.  Appending reasons and explanations to things that have happened that either are not true or could not be proven is the source of their influence.  In this respect, time is their friend.  President Obama is a secret Muslim?  He was not born in this country?  No, he is not and yes he was.  Still enough time has passed that he can say that he never said that or that Hillary Clinton started the rumors or whatever without ever taking responsibility for what part he has had in it.  As a function of time if he waits long enough or talks long enough, whatever he says is true or at least cannot be proven wrong especially to anyone who does not want to believe he is wrong.

Second, there is the more powerful aspect of what he says will happen.  Here, their power is in the ability to say things could have happened or would have happened if they were in charge.  This is the more powerful aspect of their influence yet it is the finest line they can walk.  During the campaign, Trump painted a picture of chaos and the apocalypse if Hillary Clinton won and people were willing to believe it.  He walked a fine line of having people scared enough to believe these things would happen yet not so much that they would actually elect him to solve those problems if he was actually elected.

Vladimir Putin did have a hand in hacking the election and was going to try harder.  I have a theory and this is just a theory, that this was to be a dry run.  The 2016 election was supposed to just be a pass at hacking to find weaknesses in the system and harrow Hillary Clinton on her way to a narrow victory.  I think the real "attack" would have come in 2020 when Hillary Clinton, fresh off of three years of a hard first term would run for re-election against a more qualified Republican candidate than Trump.  Then would be the hardest hack plans aided by an internal ally, Donald Trump.

Somewhere, in an alternate universe, Donald Trump lost that election.  In that alternate universe he is happy as can be because he lives in the negative.  Imagine an existence where Donald Trump is doing what he has always wanted to do; be in the public eye and catering to a demographic that is his base now; the "deplorables" without the responsibility of having to actually do anything.

If Trump had lost right about now he would likely still be on a whirlwind tour throughout the U.S. speaking to packed stadiums full of hardcore right wingers who swear he DID win and that Hillary Clinton stole the election somehow.  "Rigged" would be on t-shirts all over the country.  Every thing that Hillary Clinton did as president would be parsed and debated through his twitter account and his emerging television station and that old standby, Fox News.  He could rant daily and talk about how she should be arrested and how she is an embarrassment to the U.S.  all day, every day, from the safety and comfort of one of his ever packed properties.

Trump has even been tweeting on a regular basis lately that Jeff Sessions should be investigating Hillary Clinton and that she has gotten away with something.

If anyone said anything about his shady business dealings, he could chalk it up to political retaliation and somehow it would be Hillary Clinton abusing her power.  He and Putin could hang out as much as they wanted and plan for 2020 with Jared Kushner, Paul Manafort, or whomever by the poolside.

In the alternate time line, Donald Trump is suing Hillary Clinton and the Clinton campaign, railing on President Obama and more, all because he can and it would build his ratings and his empire.

Instead, he won.  He is in an awkward position because now he has to make good on all the promises and we are seeing that he simply cannot do it.  He promised a better health plan that is not happening.  He promised a huge wall and while a wall is forthcoming, it is nowhere near what he promised.  He promised that ISIS would be ended in 30 days... nope.  He has been nothing but an embarrassment since day one and now he cannot work in the negative.  He can say that it is the media.  He can say it is the obstructionist Democrats, but it is not.  At a certain point, he is no longer going to be allowed to work in the negative and is going to have to own what says.

The irony is that now Hillary Clinton can now work in the negative.  That is not to say that she should "go low" but she, based on this relatively new way of looking at things, can make a good case for how things would be totally different if she had won.  There are debates about whether or not she made the right decisions while running and how those decisions led to her loss, but soon, those too will go away.  She is free to make speeches or not.  She is free to attack the Trump administration (goodness knows he is presenting a large enough target) and go hiking in the woods on the weekends.  She owes no one, anything.  The same is true for President Obama.  It must all be so liberating for them.  For Trump though?  Not so much.

In this time line Trump and Putin are under tremendous scrutiny.  They are the ones being watched and investigated, as well as their family and their businesses.  Rachel Maddow and MSNBC now have higher ratings than FOX.

I am going to keep writing about this phenomenon in hopes of gaining a deeper understanding of it and what is happening to our country.  We are seeing that people are leaving things at the water's edge when maybe we should be taking a deeper dive.

Follow on Twitter at @writlargepdcst

Tom Cruise Called Up As Prosecutor In Trump Scandal

Noted actor Tom Cruise has been asked to get ready for a reprise of his role in 1992's A Few Good

Men.  Cruise was reportedly surprised at the request saying, "I am just an actor and while I will indeed jump at the chance to serve my country in whatever way asked, I merely played a lawyer and am in no way qualified."  Officials close to the investigation told Cruise that did not matter and the final cross examination speech that he made famous in the award winning movie and play of 1992 fits very closely with how they plan to approach Donald Trump when and if he ever has to take the witness stand.

Jack Nicholson has also been asked to be a stand in for Trump during mock trials.  Nicholson was reportedly surprised at the request saying, "I am just an actor".

Sources are saying that President Trump may himself be looking at the movie as a way to build his defense.  Trump has reportedly said, "Col. Jessup [Nicholson's character] doesn't seem like a bad guy.  Let's see if we can hire him." The President had to be informed that Col. Jessup is a fictional character.  Staffers are, however, busy modifying the final monologue, changing key sections in little ways like altering the phrase "You want me on that wall.  You need me on that wall!" to "You want me to build that wall.  You need me to build that wall!!!"

Trump staffers are saying that the movie is a treasure trove of information for the fake news media.  Trump liked the strategy laid out by his defense team and tweeted a cut and pasted line from the movie to Robert Mueller and his investigating team.

  I run my unit how I run my unit. You want to investigate me, roll the dice and take your chances. I eat breakfast 300 yards from 4000 Cubans who are trained to kill me, so don't think for one second that you can come down here, flash a badge, and make me nervous.

Sources say he toyed with the 4000 Cubans line, wanting to change it to "6 million illegals who voted against me...illegally.)

In a closed meeting on investigatory staff member is reported to have said, much like Cruise's character in the movie, " I think he wants to admit he made a command decision and be done with it."

Both Cruise and Nicholson have said they are ready, if needed but each actor noted that they are just actors and this real life case is a lot less believable than the movie.

Trump Announces Right Wing Friends From High School Will Receive New Presidential Medals

"In recognition of their hard work and dedication, I am going to be issuing several million
Presidential Medals of Making America Great Again to right wing friends from high school all over the United States." Trump said in a series of edited tweets.

Millions of right wing friends from high school have been invited to the White House where they will receive their medal, a handshake photo opportunity, and a pat on the head.  Winners will be broken down into "Best Facebook Post", "Bigliest Tweet" and "Best Dinner Table Rant"

Commemorative pamphlets are being printed that appear to show crowd size on inauguration day, an electoral map, with a space on the back for a signature, not that the president will sign but where recipients must sign to receive their medal.

"I am deeply honored to receive this great honor.  Just honored " one right wing friend from high school said.  "Am I insulted that I have to pay cash in advance for it?  No not at all. I am honored.  So what if I have to drive to Washington myself?  I am honored, just honored."

When asked about the medals and where they will be made, the president said proudly that they will be made in America.  Rumors purport that they will be made by a company that he owns.  Sean Spicer said that was ridiculous and that the medals are being made by a company Ivanka owns so that there is no conflict of interest and, unprompted, stated "No they are not being made by kids in the basement of a Mar-a-lago storage facility."

The president noted that in order to boost the re-emerging coal industry, they will be designed to be a small nugget of coal encased in lead because "the American lead industry has been flagging for years and we need to bring it back."

Mike Flynn as FBI Director. Who is the joke really on?

I am going to be teaching a class on Politics and Media this summer at a university in D.C. and I thought I would talk a little about it here.

So I posted a little piece, out of anger, posing that Mike Flynn had been chosen to replace James Comey as director of the FBI.  I thought it was funny.  Many other people thought it was funny.  Many people did not find it all amusing.
As quickly as a half an hour after posting, it had nearly 1000 page views and people had begun to sound off in the comments section (and still are).

 The breakdown was pretty much as follows...
About 70 percent thought it was funny and took it as the joke that it was.  About 10 percent did not think it was funny at all.  What about the other 20 percent?

That 20 percent explains a lot about who we are as a country.  Most of the time this blog serves as a place where I and others can voice my opinions on politics and elaborate with just a little depth.  This one time, when I had an idea, born of frustration, I wrote something that I thought would be funny and lighten the mood about Comey being fired.

Several people sounded off with the comment that it was not "productive".  I beg to differ. Some read it and thought it was just not funny, but as I said, about 20 percent wondered whether or not it was real and began to go off on other tangents.  Within that 20 percent were people who did not read the comments above theirs and did not read the blog post itself.

Trump has often said that even if Putin interfered with the election (he did) it did not change a single vote.  With an off hand joke, about 20 minutes of thought and writing, I was able to untintentionally get about 3000 people to think differently about something and essentially fool them with a free account.  A few people said that is how they recognized it as a fake post was the fact that this is a blogspot account, not the fact that I said that Sean Spicer threw a smoke bomb after the press briefing and exited the briefing room via a cable in the ceiling.

Also wrapped up in that 20% were the Trump supporting trolls who enter these groups so that they can undermine them from within.  The post was used in some circles to show that we liberals were making stuff up despite, I say again, that it was obviously fake to anyone who took the time to read it.  To people who fell for it, I apologize but I also ask a very big "what if".

Some people say that Vladimir Putin is worth about 70 billion dollars and other reports estimate $200 billion.  So at a minimum, he is one of the richest people in the world if not the richest person in history.  So if a person could do something like this in a matter of minutes, what if a billionaire decided to engage in something of the sort full time?

Also something to consider is that this is a process that refines itself.  What worked, what did not work?  Many people recognized it as a joke right off the bat and pointed out the flaws.  First, that it was a blogspot post.  Easy fix, pay $20 for a web domain.  Done.  Second, the piece led with a comment that "Trump tweeted..." and many people noted that there was not a picture of the tweet and that there were too many characters in the comment.  Got me.  Third, was the fact It became apparent that too many people did not actually click on the post, they just read the headline and blurb beneath it.  In literature, it is called a narrative hook.  So, the takeaway is that if there is a good picture, a grabbing headline and a blurb beneath that is intriguing enough, the rest of the article is irrelevant for many.

In the coming days, if I can, I am going to post this piece in some right wing groups and see how it goes over.  The objective is the same, though.  How hard is it to fool someone?  How difficult is it to engage someone in a narrative that simply ramps up what they wanted to believe in the first place?  Cast your mind back to a year ago when people were saying that Hillary Clinton was on the verge of death and that in her spare time she was raping children in the basement of pizza shop that has no basement and wonder whether or not Putin's antics had an impact on the election.  Take a moment also to think about how easy it was and how much of that is on us.

There are two components at play, the trick and our willingness to be tricked.  I have written my opinion about injustices and the work we do in inner cities, immigration, etc. etc. etc. but by far the greatest response I have ever gotten is over a fake post.

Elijah Montgomery

We tweet at WritLarge
Contact at 9of9productions@gmail.com

Mike Flynn being considered for FBI Director.

In a tweet today, Donald Trump suggested that he might bring back Mike Flynn to be FBI director
now that James Comey is out, having apparently happily resigned from the postion. Trump stated,"Let's be honest, no one knows more about the inner workings of the Russia investigation than Flynn, aside from Jeff Sessions and the two will be working closely together, bigly."

Flynn is reportedly considering the offer saying that there is someone he has to check with first, but he is nearly certain there will be no problems with the appointment.

Republicans on the hill are saying that this is a stunning show of leadership from the President and given that Flynn was vetted by the Obama administration, there should be no problem with him taking the office.

When asked about Flynn's dismissal as NSA director and whether or not it should be considered when choosing him for the FBI position, Sean Spicer said, "No, next question."

When pressed for further comment, Spicer said, "I find it interesting...I'm answering your question...I'm answering your question!  I find it interesting that a hero that was vetted by the Obama administration would all of the sudden be "unqualified" now that he is being considered for a position for which he alone is uniquely qualified."

Spicer then threw a smoke bomb and exited the press room via a cable in the ceiling.  He was spotted later hiding in the bushes as many in the press exited the building.

Is this out of the realm of possibility?  Given everything that has been happening lately, I would say no.

Have We Reached The Pinnacle of Protest?

This weekend was Tax Day and we were supposed to revolt, right?  Well maybe not revolt, but at least get together and shout about how much we want to see Donald Trump's tax returns.  People did, for the most part.  What I am hearing now on Monday is a lot of regret and irritation on both sides.

Trump, of course, is upset because he is likely hiding something and this issue won't go away.  He took to Twitter to acknowledge it as though it were a recurring issue when in fact it is just the same issue that it has always been.  Then he talks about how there are a number of paid protesters incited by the media.  So as he sat at Mar A Lago complaining about how he won fair and square and the election is over and there is nothing to see here, people were out protesting.

Why are WE upset, though?  Is Trump going to release his tax returns?  No time soon.  Is Planned Parenthood any better off than it was the day before he was elected?  No, in fact they are faring worse for federal support but better in private donations.  The Keystone Pipeline is moving forward.  Gorsuch presided over his first day on the Supreme Court today.  We are facing military actions in Syria, Korea, and let's remember that we just dropped the Mother Of All Bombs in Afghanistan.

So what is happening?  What is being done?  Can we say that message is beginning to get watered down?  Who are the Black Bloc and groups like them?

It is getting safe to say that the messages may be getting lost in all of the wannabe messengers.  We are getting reports of events starting off pretty focused but then falling apart as speakers take the mic to talk about taxes at a Planned Parenthood rally or Black Live Matter at a environmental protest.

Then you have the Black Bloc vs. Black Lives Matter.   The problem is that you have two different groups with decidedly different goals but they are welded together in the minds of outsiders watching because their structure is similar and tying them together can be convenient for those wanting to smear someone.

The Black Bloc is a group of anti fascists who wear all black and go to protests to, for lack of a better term, start trouble.  They wear helmets and masks and show up prepared for "battle".  As we saw in Berkeley this weekend, when the fighting starts, it is hard to tell which side is which.  The Black Bloc is an open movement though.  They do not have real uniforms or any kind of leadership structure; just a bunch of people doing stuff.

When we look at Black Lives Matter, we see they face the same problems.  There are people who can say that they started it and claim an origin, but are unwilling to own any kind of structure for it.  In fact, they openly eschew ownership.  Without that ownership, any one person can do any thing in their name causing the entire group to take responsibility; just a bunch of people doing stuff.

For a protester, this is and should be a disturbing trend.  The Occupy movement had noble beginnings but without any cohesive body or a spokesperson, it was quickly diluted and became a bunch of people sleeping on the street.

The other side is learning and the methodology has been very effective.  Let's look at the #NODAPL movement.  The Dakota Pipeline was something that was in the works for quite some time before the protests began and the Native Americans began to dig in.  There were lawyers and engineers working on the best way to route this pipeline through that land long before the first temporary tents were set up.  Time and consistency were their best weapons and they worked.

They saw a harsh winter coming and set a deadline.  While people were marching in circles in the cold and snow, they had lawyers hard at work and engineers creating multiple designs.  The uproar many were seeing on line was real but that is all it was...online.  As we approached the deadline, people showed up to show support.  Keystone knew it would not last though and at just the right time (the time when it would have been too cold for even their own people) they agreed to try to work it out.  People left, those who wanted to stay were forced out.  Days later, it was back on track for the build with protections being endorsed by President Trump.

So it seems we have reached an interesting space in the world.  The waters are so muddy that we cannot see the bottom, or the top.  The one thing that we can take from all of this is that everyone wants to speak.  Many say that the reason that Donald Trump is our president is because so many people out there felt that their voice was not being heard.  With his election comes  a flood and all of those people who were not being heard, now won't shut up.

Have we reached the pinnacle of protest; the point at which running out into the streets with a sign does no good or worse, does more harm than good?  I think that now we have to start thinking about what we are going to do with that voice.  We are heading towards something but what do we do when we get there?  The general idea seems to be to keep going; to always be campaigning and never solving the problem but making damn sure everyone knows there is a problem and whose fault it is.

Follow us on twitter at @writlargepodcst

How do you resist? Being a Resistance Early Adopter (explicit)

How does it start and where does it end?  Well, I can tell you it was not necessarily November 8th 2017.  For some people it started a long time before that and will go on a long time after.

On November 8th, I was coming back from Haiti, a place still devastated after an earthquake and worse still Hurricane Matthew.  I am going back in about two weeks, but I am not going back empty handed.

Weeks before we had started a compost pile.  Weeks before that we had started working on gardens in schools and how to get kids more involved in where their food comes from.  We started working on lowering food waste and discussing the environment.  We talked to 3rd grade teachers in Seattle and Atlanta and got them talking to each other and got the kids talking to each other.  We got them talking about what they can do in Haiti and what they can start doing about climate change and more.

As the compost pile started  break down, we talked about food and growing food for people in Haiti and how the people
in Haiti could grow their own food and food that can be exported.  It turns out the people in Haiti grow a lot of peanuts which is good in the short term but horrible for the land and caused a lot of erosion during the earthquake and worse still after the hurricane.  How do they manage waste?  How do they get electricity?  We talked about all that.

We had to catch our plane out of Port Au Prince early in the morning on November 9th.  Where we were staying, a little town in the mountains called Inviter, there was no cell phone reception and the monastery had wi-fi but not very powerful. We had to hike out because the roads were washed away.  So for several heart wrenching hours, we trekked through the dark in a strange land, thinking about how hard what we had planned would be, blissfully unaware that Donald Trump was winning the election.  Soon, as the sun began to break and we got closer to Port au Prince, cell phones began to buzz with the pick up of signal and moments of elation (many in our small group were certain Hillary was going to win) turned to screams of OH Fuck!  We had stayed with a really nice family there in the mountains, and a few in our small group considered staying.

As we prepare to go back, we wonder what a Trump presidency is going to mean.  It is going to mean working harder on this project, we thought, but also many other projects that we could only partially see coming.  How do you get support for a climate change push from an administration that does not believe it exists?  How do you reach out to a government coming from a country that is now more isolationist?  You can't edge the word Haiti in sideways when all we can talk about is Syria and Russia and China and Korea.  Once again, they are shoved to the back of the line.  They do not have oil.  They are not of strategic importance.  They are merely an island where people are suffering.

We can do something though.  We can resist.  We can realize that we are in somewhat the same boat as they as soon as we land.  When we land we start to talk about people who think that global climate change is a real and bad thing.  When we land we start to talk with people who think Black Lives Matter.  When we land we hear about children in the schools where we are building gardens who cannot afford food.  When we land we start talking about how to prepare these kids for a world where coal mining is promoted over tech, science, and innovation.

When we look back, we have been resisting since before it was called resistance.  Every Thursday, at ten a.m. we work in a garden behind a local elementary school.  25 students come over with their teacher to work with us, learn how to grow their own food and work on ways to get involved in their community.  Then they get to talk to 25 students in Seattle and 25 students in Augusta, GA and 25 students in Greenville, SC and talk about what they learned.

In that same garden, one of my students found three bullets and brought them to me.  In that same
garden, one of my Hispanic students told me that she was scared that her parents were going to be deported.

So we resist by doing what we have always done only amping it up a lot.  We have to understand the problems have not changed, they have only gotten help in becoming more problematic.  This week, next week and for as long as we can, we are going to be giving away plants grown by our kids so that people can grow food.  We resist by gardening and writing and teaching.  How do you resist?

Let us know how you resist at thelifecooperative@gmail.com

Hillary Wins! (conspiracy theory #2) ...This was never supposed to happen.

I think that Putin was the only person more surprised that Donald Trump won than Donald Trump himself.  In retrospect, it seems rather obvious that Trump was woefully unprepared to become President of the United States and if Hillary Clinton had won, he would have been a lot happier.

From the moment Trump took office he seemed surprised to be there.  During the campaign, he had made vague campaign promises about destroying ISIS in 30 days, repealing and replacing Obamacare, bringing back jobs in a horrible economy, and building a great big wall to keep out the Mexicans who are killing us and taking our jobs.  Now that he is in office, he has to live up to those promises or take another route; tell you whose fault it is that he cannot (because it is definitely not his).

I contend that he was never supposed to be there.  It was not what he or Putin wanted.  Do I believe that Putin and the Russians messed with the election?  Yes.  Do I believe that Trump had something to do with it?  Yes and no.

Given Trumps strengths, his best position is to be the guy standing at the podium telling you what is wrong.  He is a mouthpiece.  I suspect that Putin wanted to mes with America and the election and the best way to do that would be to have someone to harangue Hillary Clinton for the duration of the campaign.  Still, I think he wanted her to win and expected she would so that she would be under the microscope for the next four or more years, as Trump is now.

Putin has far more to gain if Hillary wins than having Trump in office, especially with a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate.  If Hillary had won, right about now, she would be sitting in front of Congress defending every action she has ever taken.  Bill Clinton would be accused of something new.  There would be talk of independent counsels and impeachment and blocking Supreme Court nominees and more.  There is talk about those things now, the only difference is those accusations are being leveled by Democrats.

Trump would have benefited far more if she had won also.  Imagine Trump in Trump tower tweeting about how horrible a job she is doing and IF he was president, everything would be great right about now and everyone would have a pony.  He would be launching a new TV station designed specifically to target the left without actually saying it and essentially becoming FOX 2.0.  He would be free to move about the country, play golf, make deals and suck up all the goodness that comes from saying you could do a better job without ever getting the chance to do it. No one would be asking for his tax returns or phone records.  Trump thrives in the "IF".  Trump was expecting to lose.

There is more value in insinuation and innuendo than there is in proof these days.  Before the election even happened, he was talking about rigging.  Imagine if he had lost.  Every five minutes he would be in tweeting about how "Crooked Hillary" had worked to steal the election.  Look at the troll reaction when Bernie Sanders lost the primary to Hillary.  Retribution was immediate and constant.  In many circles it goes on to this day with people taking any chance to bash Hillary for "stealing the primary".

We are finding out more and more every day about links to Russia but the trail seems to go cold after the election and we are given to wonder how the social media campaign would have changed if she had won.  Was there a larger campaign in place to further tear at her administration?  It would have been a lot easier because no one would be looking at that actual perpetrators as much.  Attempts by President Hillary Clinton to point at the Trump campaign and the Russians would have been dismissed as her trying to cover her tracks and deflect from her "failing presidency".  Trump would have made deal after deal and more and more money.

People keep using the analogy of a dog chasing a car and not knowing what to do when he catches it.  It is apt but I think it goes deeper than that.  Much like that dog, the thrill for the Right and for Trump is in the chase.  It is the exercise that comes from running.  It is the intimidation that others see from a ferocious dog chasing anything.

Putin has no intention of blackmailing President Trump.  He can't, really.  There would be too many people looking and watching a president. He wanted to blackmail and own Trump the private citizen.  Trump the private citizen is where the money and the power are.  He wanted someone powerful in the U.S. not to have power, but to erode and undermine that power over time using a television station, a social media network, and a voice from within the U.S.

The problem was that Putin was too good at it and though the idea was to get as close as possible without actually winning.  He was looking at the same polls we were.  He was listening to the same people we were; people who insisted they were independent and undecided, but not.  Instead he ended up winning and now, shutting down all of those avenues that were constructed to bash Hillary for four years, are leaving a trail.  And speaking of trails, Hillary is probably out hiking right now as the Trump administration collapses.

Because I cannot hear my voice...

I work in a small city just outside of Atlanta called Doraville.  It is somewhat developed and populated predominantly by minorities; mostly Hispanic. A few weeks ago, in a wave of protests aimed at bringing awareness to the policies that would hurt them, groups organized the Day Without Immigrants on February 17.  Social media sites sent out the word and marches and walkouts were held.  The problem is that many Hispanics did not get the call and many also did not heed the call.  Where I work, a great many Hispanics do not use social media.  Many never heard that this was going on.  Many heard, but could not take the day off for fear of losing their jobs.  For many, it had to be just another day.

When we started talking about that wall, we had to take quite a few things into account. The defense of those impacted by the wall would in all likelihood, have to take place in large part without their active participation.   We are talking about undocumented workers who cannot step forward to tell their stories or defend themselves because, well, they are undocumented.... and “illegal”.  

Still, as a community, they are somewhat separate from the rest of the U.S. and when we look at how to engage a community we have to hear their voices and recognize there may be other considerations we need to take into account.  Things like the fact that the same modes of engagement as the Women’s Marches would not work the same.  Can someone who does not speak English well or at all call their congressman to complain.  Would they?

So what about me?  I am a 43 year old black liberal and I don’t hear my voice out there much either.  I am educated.  I am a veteran.  I have concerns.  In my adult life I have been stopped by the police 27 times.  When I look at tv shows and listen to podcasts or worse yet, watch the White House Press Briefings, I have to pause them while I fume over the fact that the press is not asking a question that I find rather obvious, but that they neglect to mention.

Even the right has a similar problem.  In my opinion, Donald Trump became president because a bunch of really small factions came together to vote him in BUT there was never a cohesive idea of what having him there means.  Imagine a hundred people in a room who voted for Trump.  As a group they are able to say, “We want X.” and there is agreement within the room but then you have other people with other agendas that conflict with the fact that these people wanted Trump to be president.  Those people who said “we want X.” are now co-mingled with those who say, “ We want X and we also dislike Jews, Blacks, Mexicans, women, LGBTQ, etc.” The voice of the moderates who wanted Trump and were willing to align with the extremes of the right to get him elected are now being “owned” by those extremes.  Many people on the right cast their vote for Trump for whatever reason and then sought to get on with their lives but in fact what happened was they became another number those extremists could point to and say that they are a part of the great numbers who rose in opposition the Dems.  So in that room of 100 people, maybe 5 are white supremacists, 5 are outright misogynists, etc. but I do not think the vast majority are bad or "deplorable" people, just a conglomeration of people who had specific wants they felt would be addressed by this administration.

So, as we watch the Attorney General Sessions talk about withholding federal funding from "sanctuary cities" that help immigrants, we do not hear their voice.  I watched as Sessions walked out as April Ryan asked about Eric Garner and the man who was stabbed and killed by a white supremacist it is important to bring out more voices because I can't hear mine.

So we are looking for the voices! (extreme PLURAL).  The Writ Large Podcast is a commentary podcast where YOU get to ask the questions and make the comments that you want to make.  Get your comments and questions in by Friday to be a part of the next week's podcast.

Here are the rules... 

We need people to call us at (719) 357-7003 and tell us what you think to be a part of the first episode of the Writ Large Podcast.

We want people to call in or text and we will read it allowed to tell us what you think. 

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Please keep your responses to under 5 minutes.

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Things that must be happening right now based on Trump's weekend

It has been a wild political weekend to say the least.  There were the debates of course and well, we all know about the video.  Oh my goodness, the video.

Now is the time that we look forward, though.  Trump apologized and that is the end of it, right?  So how are we this fine Monday morning?  There are so many things that must be going on right now, as we speak, based on this weekend's events.

Somewhere, let's be honest, there is a young girl lying flat on her back doing goodness knows what in a porn parody of this whole election.

Somewhere, there is an intern, combing through hours and hours of tapes basically with his or her eyes taped open so that they can find something else as damaging.

Somewhere, there is someone putting together a lot of cash to pay off the owner of the tapes perhaps, to keep them quiet.

Somewhere, there is someone putting together a lot of cash to pay off the owner of the tapes, perhaps, to make them public.

Somewhere, there are people who are constructing elaborate arguments as to why Trump is still viable, spinning his debate performance, and conspicuously avoiding eye contact with their mothers, sisters, and daughters.

All of this is happening right here in America,

The Bots Have Taken Over!

I am going to do something that I normally would not.  I am going to recommend that you go to Donald Trump's facebook page.  Or go to his Twitter feed.  Pick a post, any post.  Then I want you to look at the comments down beneath that post.
I read a lot of articles about politics and lately a lot of articles about the presidential candidates.  There is something that is common to both their sites and more specifically the comments underneath.  Take a look and see if you notice it.
I will go ahead and tell you. The bots have taken over.  Most of them are pro-Trump and if you look at the names and locations there are some very interesting trends.
First, there is the "Only Hillary..." bot.  This is a person who has cut an pasted some speech that someone somewhere wrote outlining a bunch of things that "only Hillary" has done.  So long is this litany of things that few spend the time to research all or any of the things that only Hillary has done.  There is then a mix of people who try in response or who agree with it.  It is just long enough to convey some idea of intelligent research and just short enough to be a sound bite.
Second there is the person who states their agency and attempts to establish that they belong to a group that is known to be anti-Trump and that they have come to their senses and now support Trump for some reason.  I am gay and I support Trump because... I am black and I support Trump because...I am a veteran and I support Trump because...
Third there is just the hater.  The hater just uses a bunch of words...bad and stuff. insults...bad.  The hater has a plethora of Hillary rhymes (Killery, Hitlery, etc.)
Fourth, there is my favorite the hater, denier.  This is a person who is relatively new and bases their replies on the current polls.  If Hillary is up in the polls, then the polls are fake and the game is rigged.  If she is down in the polls it is just a show of how the polls are rigged but the massive number of Trump supporters are overwhelming!
The most interesting thing that we see now is that they are alone.  Really.  When you look and I mean really look, it has become a lot like those old AOL chat rooms where all the real people eventually leave and you just have bots talking to bots. 
The common thread, especially when it comes to CNN is something like the hater comments.  The first thing they say is that no one reads this particular page, article, etc. not recognizing the irony of posting on an article or site that thousands of people are reading.
This leads to a lot of other questions.  The biggest being, what impact is this having?  How many people in middle America are on Twitter and Facebook?  How many believe what they see versus what they read, or what they see, or what they are told?
As of this writing, Hillary Clinton is ahead in the polls and by all accounts rising, but I am surprised at the number of people saying that she is not. What do you believe?

We can be found on Twitter at @writlargepodcst