Hekate
Hekate's JournalMy family moved to O'ahu in 1957 -- I didn't move away until 1979
My dad came on a Lockheed Aircraft contract, which ended after 8 years, the same year I graduated from Kailua High School. We returned to SoCal just in time for events like the Watts Riots. As the oldest kid, I was the only one who really could return, and after a few years of community college in California -- politically formative years-- I transferred to University of Hawai'i instead of UC Berkeley. I planned to stay forever, but, well, life has other plans.
Have not been able to return more than a few times, but despite everything, the 'aina is as beautiful as ever, and speaks to my soul.
When I read Obama's book during his first presidential campaign I could tell how much it had shaped him, irrevocably. He married into the African American community, but he is also a true keiki o ka 'aina. Any Hawai'ian would understand both parts of that.
Considering HRC won 3 million more votes than Red Don, despite Putin, vote rigging, and all...
Yeah, I'd call that pretty horrific too. Damn, that woman failed utterly to get the racist vote, the white nationalist vote, the vote of those who want a strongman (emphasis on man), and the low-information vote. Such a failure. Damn, and it's all on her, no question.
So tell me, all you prosecutors and juries out there: How do we swing the Democratic Party and our message in the coming elections so we can capture the racists, misogynists, white nationalists, and low-info voters? Is a strong leftward tilt going to get them? What, exactly? On edit: For gods' sake don't take this to mean I think the Party needs to swing rightward. I don't. But think about who The Mad King's base really is when you bemoan the fact that we lost them. We never had them.
Or are we going to stop blaming Hillary for our own party's members' failure (among other things) to show up at midterms -- the failure that allows statehouses to pick up representatives who then get to gerrymander the hell out of districts? Are we going to stop blaming her for problems that have been accumulating for 40 years, ever since Newt Gingrich started his Orwellian career, a far right wing billionaire-funded plan that is now bearing its most evil and poisonous fruit?
Oh sure, DefenseLawyer, defend that status quo.
Where were you when DU was hacked? I sure remember how cocky and condescending (your words) our members were. On Nov 7 one of our most respected members told how she woke up that morning thinking the election was over and Trump had won, at which point she vomited. She was not alone in that state of hyper-anxiety. Then the nightmare came true for all of us.
This country has systemic problems that are none of Hillary's fault. She's spent a lifetime trying to ameliorate them. And her reward has been to be hunted down like a dog by the VRWC until millions believed the lies.
Yet she still got 3 million more verifiable votes than Trojan Horse Don, the Mad King.
Yeah, sure we feel all condescending and cocky. 
Actually, we just have had it up to our back teeth with the lies that will not die, and the blame that is going to sell a thousand books.
As CEO he never had to speak to press gaggles who peppered him with rude questions...
...and expected answers. If he ever spoke publicly at all (if shareholder meetings count as public) it would have been from well-prepared written remarks, no questions after. The employees in the Exxon building were all peons to one degree or another, in his eyes; if his behavior in State is any indication, he spent all his time in his office going over papers, meeting only with his near-equals, and never acknowledging the presence of other employees in the halls or elevators.
Tillerson knows one thing and he knows it well. Those skills and behaviors have not translated well to his new job.
The oft-repeated GOP mantra that government should be run like a business is entirely the wrong paradigm, but how many Americans will finally learn that lesson?
Not so. Children need to be taught what is right and how to act when they are young. ...
How else will they grow up to be decent people themselves? Soon enough they learn there are people who are not decent, or kind, or honest. Then we (parents, teachers) teach them how to respond, how to speak up, how to defend themselves and others. These are tools for life.
Trump serves as a horrible example of everything a human being should not be. He's rich and powerful -- that doesn't make him a "winner."
Resistance starts at home, and it starts young.
Assault. Slander. Hatred of strong women. Yeah, it's what the so-called potus does.
Well-spotted.
Susan Rice is being slandered, as is Obama. "It's her turn in the barrel," as they so charmingly...
...put it about Podesta. I think Trump and his minions just throw all the names of decent people who served this country in a bucket and pull them out at random. Or the Trumpites pull the names out of somewhere much darker on Red Don's person.
Slander, people. Slander.
"Pace ourselves"?! Going at this full-tilt is what got us this victory. Shouting at town halls...
...and making GOP congressmen wet their pants got us here. Storming airports got the Muslim Ban overturned twice. Millions of women in the streets all at once ...
Pace ourselves my rosy Irish ass. Fuck that noise. We need to resist without cease.
Thank you for your concern though, worstexever.
I remember when Scalia said the same thing about gay marriage when some incremental thing....
...came before the SCOTUS. "If you pass this, then gay marriage soon becomes inevitable across the country." Not an exact quote, but I was struck by it because it did not seem to be in his usual style -- but instead a bald statement of fact. And it came true.
So, Dr Krauthammer, from your lips to God's ears.
Barack Obama is a genius. All the people who whined and had tantrums because the pony under the Xmas tree didn't have silver studded tack or a unicorn's horn, but instead turned out to be a baby workhorse that needed nurturing and training before becoming a massive Clydesdale can kiss my wrinkly rosy Irish ass 10 years from now.
Meantime, we have a lot of work still to do.
There are many paths to corruption, and they all start with "just a little won't hurt."
The classic temptation scenes in literature are often presented as a psychological seduction, a slow manipulation. Almost no one just wakes up one morning and says, "By golly, today is the day I sell out my nation." It takes some persuasion.
Flynn has a lot of resentment in him -- wasn't he passed over for a promotion and/or let go from his last job for not being a good manager? That's certainly something a spymaster could work with.
Look at all the Americans getting paid to appear on RT. Was Larry King the first? Good old Larry. They gave him a show. The Cold War is over, and our two countries are not enemies any more. So Thom Hartmann went over, and took their money. RT has by now collected a number of American Progressives, Greens, and Populists, and they all take money from the State-owned propaganda outlet of the former Soviet Union. No harm done, amirite? They don't write my scripts! Communism is dead; long live the oligarchy!
Except the harm done is they have become beards, unwitting or not, for Putin, who is a genuine enemy of ours -- and if they can't see that by now it says something very sad about people who used to be admired by the American Left.
As for General Flynn, who will be stripped of his rank and pension before this is all over, who knows what the beginning was, except resentment and anger no doubt played a part. Putin arranged for him to get "speaker's fees" -- and the general knew that was verboten. What went on before that we will no doubt find out some day, just as we are now finding out what happened after he really fell into the pit of corruption, ie, working with the Turks on a kidnap-murder.
So many paths. Power is a classic. In the myth of Jesus, Satan tempts him with the power -- to do good. Power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Jesus declined the offer.
I've tried and erased 4 comments. They are just evil. Okay, I'll try again...
No women need apply.
Contraceptives? Not my problem. Prenatal care? Pfft. Postnatal care? Who needs it? Well baby checkups? Oh, be real. Pap smears and mammograms? Eww, ladyparts.
Next time I really lose my temper and call them all "motherfuckers," there will be a whole new layer of literal meaning.
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: Central Coast, California
Home country: USA
Member since: 2002
Number of posts: 90,893
