I'm not sure I've ever felt worse as a human being in my lifetime.

[JMCKUSICK]

Today's SC decision re: birthright citizenship, when combined with the "no due process decision from Monday, has destroyed the United States of America as we all know it.
All my personal issues are taking their own toll on me no doubt, but the despondence I feel comes from the loss of what this country has meant to generations of people. I came to America as a 9 1/2 year old on July the 4th, 1976 to live after spending my first 9 plus years in Germany. Yes, I was born a US citizen, but it doesn't change the pride I felt being here in this country that really was the example to the world and being able watch and grow up amid living examples of America's exceptionalism through her struggles for a more perfect union.
I sit here feeling helpless and realizing that I'm feeling profound grief. The hopelessness I feel right now knowing that this will give a steroid injection to Stephen Miller and Trumps' worst impulses just crushes me as i imagine each life being uprooted and destroyed for purely evil reasons.
I cry at the cruelty that I know now awaits so many people, HUMAN BEINGS, that will be subjected to untold acts of pure hatred by what will surely become trumps SS. These things will happen virtually in broad daylight and the victims will be in some country that they have zero connection to, with no means to support themselves, and God forbid, a prison cell if the trump people paid them enough. For what? For having the wrong skin color.
I'm ashamed of who America has become. I know it's not all of us, but it is the people who have the unfettered power to cause that harm and so much more.
I'm coming to believe that our elected representatives must have some degree of psychopathic tendencies, (Including Democrats) because we've been listening to politicians talk about these issues like we're discussing our favorite brands of laundry detergent. You know, we're just gonna have to agree to disagree that Tide is better than Arm&Hammer etc...
Even the people we trust in the media, (Maddow, Lawrence O'Donnell etc...) are guilty of "discussing these events" in a detached way that has numbed us to this shit for years now.
I wrote months ago that we need to shut it down, full stop. Our power comes from what we do together, and the notion that logic and negotiation will get us through this is proving more absurd by the day. Yes, if we stop spending money, people will be harmed. The question we have to ask ourselves is this: Are we really willing to let trump commit these atrocities defending our limited action by saying we don't want people to lose their jobs or hurt our country economically? If 3% of us stop spending money on Mondays, another three% on Tuesdays etc and most importantly, stop ALL discretionary spending, the impact on the economy will be profound and change inducing.
We need to stand with our fellow humans and agree to exit our comfortable existences to save them from their grotesque fate.

[live love laugh]

12. Waiting to vote isn't enough.

[Eliot Rosewater]

28. That is for goddamn sure, we aren't gonna be able to vote

For Christ sake, haven’t we learned anything yet?

And if we do vote, it’ll be in a rigged election just like 2024 was

?si=GQTswz1nZIGJHAMH

[AllyCat]

14. Miami municipal elections are delayed a year because they wanted to

I assume other locales and government bodies will follow suit.

[JMCKUSICK]

23. that took some balls huh?

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. Thank you for your profound eloquence, my dear JMCKUSICK.

You've said it so much better than I ever could.

[InAbLuEsTaTe]

26. Same here & the longer we take to figure out how we got into this mess, the longer it'll take for us to get out of it!!

[FalloutShelter]

27. Feel exactly the same way.

[dwayneb]

3. Here is what is different and useful about your post

Instead of continually stating the obvious and wringing our hands, you propose specific action items. In other words ACTIONABLE.

"I wrote months ago that we need to shut it down, full stop. Our power comes from what we do together, and the notion that logic and negotiation will get us through this is proving more absurd by the day. Yes, if we stop spending money, people will be harmed. The question we have to ask ourselves is this: Are we really willing to let trump commit these atrocities defending our limited action by saying we don't want people to lose their jobs or hurt our country economically? If 3% of us stop spending money on Mondays, another three% on Tuesdays etc and most importantly, stop ALL discretionary spending, the impact on the economy will be profound and change inducing."

This is the only way we stand any chance of stopping Trump and his Mafia syndicate.

But I think you overestimate the ability of the American people to first comprehend how badly they are fucked. They won't figure that out until people in their families and communities start to be disappeared. They won't figure it out until one day they wake up with the boot on their neck.

Secondly there are not enough people in this country with the critical thinking skills to be able to put together a boycott like that. We become less educated and more entranced with our electronic toys every day.

Instead they will be content to go gently into that good night.

[Jack Valentino]

7. If any of our acts of rebellion and/or boycott hurt those at the bottom,

then those of us with the means must step up to help them in the time of crisis---

but to stand by and do nothing to resist is unacceptable.


Democrats are nearly half of the economy. We could create a recession,
all on our own, with only a fraction with-holding spending,
which would spell the doom of the Republicans in the 2026 midterm election...

[JMCKUSICK]

8. I am in full agreement with the last 2 full paragraphs you wrote Dwayneb

As we sit here today, we are way behind where we need to be to fight this. No one believed it would get this bad......and they can't still believe that this is only going to get worse. The midterm elections will be a fantasy we have about how things used to be.
What no-one seems to grasp is that things are happening in hours and days that used to happen in months. With the SC decisions this week, I can't envision how bad things will be this November, much less 2026.

[stillcool]

4. I think today's decision put the

fork in it. It's done. If the federal government is lawless, what do we need a Congress for?

[Joinfortmill]

5. I completely agree.

[usonian]

6. I posted the link to info on a general strike.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10114325 Activist HQ

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100220438506 GD

Two points to share here.

1. Tell me, what else is working?

2. The country is on fire.

[JMCKUSICK]

9. Agreed Usonian

[calimary]

10. I'll take any day you assign me.

But then again, it could be any day of the week, just anyway.

I stopped spending money on all things but essentials awhile ago, and my husband did so, too. I’m very happy to keep it that way. If it’ll help send a message, then so much the better!

[SARose]

29. Same here

Topping up my preps and hunkering down for now.

[Ilsa]

11. I hate that so many people have

died in service to our nation that has turned into this shit.

[Woodycall]

13. I've posted this here before.

But I ask all of those here reading JMCKUSICK's excellent and extraordinarily relevant post to take a few minutes to read through it (or read it again perhaps). In light of the discussion here tonight, I think it will more than give you goose bumps. I think it will chill you to the bone.

They Thought They Were Free
The Germans, 1933-45
~ Milton Mayer ~

https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.htm







i

[JMCKUSICK]

16. This paragraph in particular from your link Woodycall

Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

[Woodycall]

17. Thom Hartmann would read it on-air during Trump's first "Administration".

It's WAY more impactful and profound now...

Pass it around...

[elleng]

15. Ditto.

[Initech]

18. It just keeps getting shittier and shittier and shittier.

Fuck Donald Trump. Fuck Fox News. Fuck the Heritage Foundation.

[JMCKUSICK]

19. Agreed!

[blubunyip]

20. You are not alone and many feel the shame

Thanks for expressing the ongoing hurt and outrage so many feel.

What is being done to these people defined as “other” cannot be tolerated — it is brutal and unamerican.

As you say, “Discussing these events” in a detached way. .. has numbed us to this shit”

absolutely

Americans put up with way too much out of complacency and inertia. The time has come to finally act— in the nonviolent ways still open to us. Not to act now is to be complicit.

It’s up to us who understand exactly what is going on. And we are many.

[JMCKUSICK]

22. The ultimate and extremely urgent question is,

How do we protest in a way that stops this right now, as every day it goes on, it will get worse.
A monsters appetite always grows.

[blubunyip]

24. Agree it will get worse

We need to witness, document, and spread on media. Object loudly and often —to those in power. Support everyone speaking out, visibly opposing. Continue to protest. Opposition will grow.

[wordstroken]

21. I hear you, John. Loud and clear. You are exactly on point. No one could have said it better. You've helped me put my

scattered feelings more into focus. If I didn’t have my writing of novels to escape into, I don’t know what I would do.

My entire life — starting when I was eight years old and saw two drinking fountains side by side in the county courthouse labeled “White” and “Colored” and figured it out because my father was the worst bigot of all who punished me over and over again with his accusations that I was a “n**** lover.” That started my long career as a staunch activist for civil rights, voting rights, racial equality and that has continued every day of my long life, including winning lawsuits on behalf if disabled children.

One of the highlights of my activism was as a Florida rep for the National Federation of the Blind, I had the honor and privilege of meeting and marching alongside Congressman John Lewis in Atlanta’s "March for Independence" in Atlanta, with a photo (proudly carrying the banner), which appeared on the front page of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on July 4, 2007.

Even though I have a doctorate in psychology and health education, it’s extremely difficult to step outside of the “professional role” and maintain a subjective perspective when it comes to evaluating our own emotions and those of the people — and pets — we love.

Thank you so much, John, for all your on-target brainiac abilities to create images with words that apply to me and help so many others here in our DU family.


With much love and appreciation,
🦋 wordstroken

[JMCKUSICK]

25. Thank you so much for those very kind words.

That you have a lifetime of examples of the worst in people to draw from wordstroken, makes what's happening now so much worse in that you know full well the breakneck speed at which we are going backwards without meaningful guardrails.
I know this will impact everyone, and none of them in a net positive way, but knowing your work was so dedicated to helping the very people that the senate is now voting to destroy must be especially painful for you.
I'm sorry and I wish there was something I could do other than to encourage you and the inspired work that you've done and continue to do as best you can.
As Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush so wonderfully sang,
"Don't give up
You still have us
Don't give up
We don't need much of anything
Don't give up
'Cause somewhere there's a place
Where we belong".

Can't say it any better than that!

[wordstroken]

30. And thank YOU, John, for introducing me to Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush. Not only are their mingled voices enchantingly

soothing, but their “Don’t Give Up” message is extremely powerful.


🦋 wordstroken

[JMCKUSICK]

31. You've never heard of him before?

I'm shocked wordstroken, shocked lol.
Peter Gabriel was with Genesis for some years before he went out on his own. My personal liking started back in the Shock The Monkey days, but that song ended up one of my least favorite.
I compare his song writing and diversity to that of Paul Simon.