I’ve spent two days reading and researching the details of Robert Mueller’s recent indictment of 12 Russian Nationals.
An Unknown American sought dirt on Hillary Clinton from Russian Cyber Operatives
Here’s what I got from reading the text of Mueller’s indictment: 12 Officers of the Russian GRU had orders to attack the United States.
This is a fact and facts are not open to debate.
Excerpt from Mueller’s Indictment
Furthermore, these military units used propaganda and psychological warfare as part of a broad campaign to sabotage our 2016 elections to place a Russian asset in the office of The President.
A page from the 2016 NATO Defense College Handbook of Russian Information Warfare
The use of military against a civilian population makes this an act of war by the Russian Federation against the people of the United States.
The Russian Federation had help from unnamed American co-conspirators in the United States.
Paul Ryan’s response in 2016 upon hearing that Putin funds Trump.
In order to carry out their activities to interfere in U.S. political and electoral processes without detection of their Russian affiliation, Defendants conspired to obstruct the lawful functions of the United States government through fraud and deceit, including by making expenditures in connection with the 2016 U.S. presidential election without proper regulatory disclosure; failing to register as foreign agents carrying out political activities within the United States; and obtaining visas through false and fraudulent statements.
“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I’m a human being, first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.”
― Malcolm X
“I am just one of the people who is sick of the social order, sick of the establishment, sick to my soul of it all. To me, America’s society is nothing but a cancer, and it must be exposed before it can be cured. I am not the doctor to cure it. All I can do is expose the sickness.”
― Nina Simone
“If by a “Liberal” they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people-their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights and their civil liberties-someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a “Liberal”, then I’m proud to say I’m a “Liberal.”
― John F. Kennedy, Profiles in Courage
There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe nor politic nor popular, but he must take it because his conscience tells him it is right.Martin Luther King, Jr.
“I wonder if the course of narcissism through the ages would have been any different had Narcissus first peered into a cesspool. He probably did.”
― Frank O’Hara, Early Writing
Life is occupied in both perpetuating itself and in surpassing itself; if all it does is maintain itself, then living is only not dying. Simone de Beauvoir
What I did not yet know so intensely was the hatred of the white American for the black, a hatred so deep that I wonder if every white man in this country, when he plants a tree, doesn’t see Negroes hanging from its branches. Jean Genet
Disclaimer: To the best of my knowledge the images on this page are in the public domain.
Header photo, Portrait of Malcolm X, by Rob Goldstein (c) 2016
Americans are a funny lot; we’ll give a pass to sexual and religious hypocrisy,
treat the theft of a SCOTUS Seat as if it was a gaming strategy, and wait for a savior as an obviously lawless and malignant GOP conspires with Vladimir Putin to hinder an investigation into an act of war against us. But the sight of a sadistic President gleefully using the federal government to abuse children works our very last nerve.
Silence is not an option
A federal policy of abusing immigrants and children is kindling for a growing sense that Trump’s government is alien to Americans and a threat to who
we are as a people; at Pride the response to this is we intend to fight back.
A speaker reminded the crowd that gays and feminists didn’t win rights by throwing parties:
At the Families Belong Together March, I heard it expressed as moral outrage:
Our Founders were clear which branch of government steps in when the other three branches are compromised:
On July 4, 1776, Thomas Jefferson explained why the colonies sought independence and why the colonials would fight and die for it:
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.—
That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. —
That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness… it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”
State Sanctioned child abuse is intolerable and the horror of a President who devises policies that allow him to indulge in it transcends all differences.
This is what democracy looks like:
I give Joan Baez the closing line:
“At some point it will become necessary to do Civil Disobedience.”
Joan Baez, June 30, 2018 Families Belong Together
The civil rights of people of color are Human Rights
The civil rights of women are Human Rights
The civil rights of LGBTQ people are Human Rights.
The Civil Rights of Immigrants are Human Rights.
The right of equal access to schools, housing and medical care
are Human Rights.
We seek the liberation of all human beings from all forms
of bondage
This Pride Month, 2018, let us speak of liberation.
Let us unite with people of good will regardless of race, creed, gender,
gender identity, sexuality, religion, and political affiliation; let us unite to
liberate ourselves from the stifling oppression of a corrupt and toxic patriarchy.
