Prose and Thorn

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The only thing 'self-evident' is we must get better at America-ing

The only thing 'self-evident' is we must get better at America-ing. Ignore Trump. Work on it ourselves.

Black Lives Matter protest, Atlanta, Georgia, June 6, 2020. (by author)

This is a particularly joyless Fourth of July. It is not just that like all our other commemorations during the Covid-19 pandemic, many of us will be rescheduling our celebrations for 2021. It is the realization that this year there is a call to question – what exactly are we celebrating?

There is little evidence, these…

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Partisanship, Separation of Powers and the Government’s Lack of Self-Control

Partisanship, Separation of Powers and the Government’s Lack of Self-Control: how governing with #partisanship as a primary principle weakens the governing body’s ability to, as Madison said, "resist encroachments of others.” #impeachment

No Daylight

I don’t pretend to know everything that is wrong with the way our leaders and our representatives in Washington, D.C., deal with their jobs, or by what measure they weigh the relative value and importance of their duties and responsibilities to us, the Constitution and their parties. Too often, it seems, they are driven more by maintaining their party’s power than their patriotism.

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The puppet is unprecedented - the political power grab is not

The Trump puppet is 'unprecedented;' the political power grab is not. The impeachment has just ramped up their desperate fear they may lose this chance with a 'malleable fool' in the Oval Office.

Adapted by PBG from Jackie [CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)%5D

Unprecedented. If you have been paying attention at all to politics the last three years, you know to what – and to whom – the word has been applied. We use it so freely these days that many news outlets have warned against deploying it in the context of the current White House because it has become a…

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Aspiration and the conniving racist albatross

Trump's divisive rhetoric makes it nearly impossible for the #Democrats to establish a coherent, aspirational message. They are so busy reacting to every uncivil, socially devastating bomb he sets off that they can no longer mount a proactive campaign.

“How do we get there from here?”

Presidential candidates are supposed to be standing at the foot of a mountain called Aspiration, their hands gesturing affirmingly as they express their soaring ideas and respective visions for our country. They passionately implore us, explaining how, if we follow the path on which they are embarking, if we work together and lift each other up, we as a nation…

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You cannot hit impeachment if you don't notch Russia in your bow

#Mueller told Congress it's their turn to take on Trump, but @SpeakerPelosi needs to know, the safe road to impeachment goes through investigating #RussianInterference

Committee photo (left) by Donna Burton (Public Domain) Kremlin (right) by A. Savin via Wikimedia Commons

There is no question most of us have wanted Donald Trump out of our political discourse since his scathing, xenophobic scree after he came down the escalator at Trump Tower four years ago this month.

Since Robert Mueller delivered his public statementon Russian election interference…

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Lying to win: agenda, ego and insecurity in the GOP

Lying to win: an agenda, and Trump's ego and insecurity in the GOP

President Donald Trump at a midterm campaign rally, Phoenix, AZ, October 19, 2018. (photo by Gage Skidmore, via Wikimedia Commons)Games, when we played them as children, had a singular agenda: WIN! Otherwise, what was the point – fun? Fun was just a side benefit, which there was always a lot more of when you got to yell, “I WIN!”

I was terrible at games when I was a kid. When I say “terrible,” I…

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Faith's Fatal Turn

Faith's Fatal Turn- "I cannot do it, not today, Face disagreeable friends’ feigned dismay, Face hypocrites fearing more from a Muslim afar Than the armed Christian racist in the next car..." #squirrelhill #pittsburgh #treeoflife

America cut me deeply, today. Liberty’s light seen dimming away. Pray and die while the bullet holes burn. How to believe with perfect faith When faith takes a fatal turn? How to believe America’s great When it’s its distrust we must learn?

This is not the pain one feels When a wound is fresh and new. This scrapes the bone with cold, deep steel, A familiar tightening of the screw.

I am born to…

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Was John McCain an ‘honorable man?’

Was John McCain an ‘honorable man?’

By Dan Raustadt / CC-BY-SA-3.0 (Creative Commons)

Was John McCain an ‘honorable man?’

“The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft’ interred with their bones.”

That line in William Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar, from Marc Antony’s “Friends, Romans, countrymen…” eulogy of the slain leader, is the bard’s take on how we hold different perspectives in our judgement of people in their…

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My name is America. Please help me.

My name is America. I am in an abusive relationship. It has gotten so I don't recognize myself. Please help me. #FourthOfJuly #Freedom #TheThreatIsReal

My name is America, and I am in an abusive relationship. My children make demands on me to which I do not have the ability to comply. It’s not in my constitution.

No, I have not succumbed to the stresses of age. I am only 242 years old. By the longevity achieved by many of my now estranged brothers and sisters, I am still barely grown. Yes, I have skills and abilities to bring others together,…

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Trump decides to keep immigrant families together - if it's not too inconvenient

Trump decides to keep immigrant families together - if it's not too inconvenient for #ICE and #HHS. It's up to us to protect the migrant children.

Protester in Philadelphia, expressing his frustration with President Trump’s “zero tolerance,” child separation policy. June, 2018. By Sarahmirk [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)%5D, from Wikimedia CommonsIt’s multiple choice, really. There are lots of reasons Donald Trump has decided to rescind his administration’s Draconian policy of ripping babies out of the arms…

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To willingly act in unity before we willingly forget in despair

Change requires action when it comes to #SchoolShootings like #Parkland. We must willingly act in unity before we make the mistake of giving in to our inclination and willingly forget in despair.

March For Our Lives, Atlanta, Georgia. March 24, 2018 The smoke never really clears. The smell of sulfur and saltpeter lingers, a haze swirling over the blood-smeared floors of schools, churches and movie theaters, a sinking fog kissing the grey, turned ground of fresh graves, seeping into the chasms of breaking hearts. This is what war is – knowing those who have violently died at the hands of a…

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Of Torches and Candlelight Vigils

Of torches and candlelight vigils: a plea for unity, after #Charlottesville

I am afraid and I am fearless. I am a humble wordsmith with ideas and a proud activist with a bullhorn. I am, and plan to always be, an American. I am also a pluralist, a social ecumenicist, if you will. This is my country. Believe what you will. Be whoever you want to be. Above all, be responsible for what you put into the world. Today I am a flame, a mix of angry torches and solemn vigils. What…

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Wanted a revolution, got the wrong one

Wanted a revolution, got the wrong one

Bernie Sanders fought for a social revolution with the goal of economic prosperity for every American. Instead, we got an economic revolution with the goal of greater prosperity for wealthy Americans and the global oligarchy, and motivated more by a need for power for some than a call to serve all. That revolution is led by Christian conspiracists Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, who belong to…

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Tears for Fears

A sad Obama goodbye leaves Americans in tears, but why? Not the @POTUS that was, but the one to be.

President Barack Obama wipes away a tear during his farewell address, January 10, 2017. (WH.gov) “Democracy can buckle when we give in to fear. So, just as we, as citizens, must remain vigilant against external aggression, we must guard against a weakening of the values that make us who we are.” – President Barack Obama, from his farewell speech, January 10, 2017 There was sobbing, actual…

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An affirmative case for Hillary Clinton

An affirmative case for @HillaryClinton - an endorsement that's not based on how awful @realDonaldJTrump is. #BabyBoomers #Feminism

“It wasn’t lost on everybody—including some in the press—that her principal transgression actually seemed to be that she was a woman who said what she thought instead of quietly receding into the conventionally accepted political staging.” – from a Politico article about how a 60 Minutes appearance in 1992 planted in the minds of Americans their relative opinions of Hillary Rodham Clinton What a…

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Activism and accountability: a conversation with Cecily McMillan

Activism and accountability: a conversation with Cecily McMillan

Saturday, September 17, was the fifth anniversary of the first day of Occupy Wall Street – two months of protest against economic inequality, based in a small plaza in Lower Manhattan known as Zuccotti Park. The movement spawned other Occupy protests from Seattle to Miami and launched an unstoppable revolution to stand up for the ninety-nine percent for whom the economy doesn’t work. For the…

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Alienation, silence and revolution at the DNC

Alienation, silence and revolution at the DNC

Bernie Sanders delegate Scott Brown, from Georgia, sits in silent protest at the 2016 Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. (Photo courtesy Paula Olivares. Used with permission.) I don’t know if party politics is supposed to be a zero sum game, where each side gets something it wants and reaches a consensus to ignore the rest, but I have seen that in the hearts of many Bernie Sanders…

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