mahina
mahina's JournalWho's listening to Dan Pfeiffer's audiobook (or reading) Un-Trumping America:
A Plan to Make America A Democracy Again?
Pod Save America listeners will recognize Dan Pfeiffer as one of the crooked media squad.
He served during Barrack Obama’s first presidential campaign through 6 years in the Oval Office, traveling with the President, as deputy communication head and the top communication aide, often refining and chiming in at critical points. He encouraged Barrack in his instinct to stay on message against the RW and donor /pac pressures.
A phenomenal look back into what we all just went through from the nerve center, and a comprehensive overview into the massive changes that our organizing systems have not caught up with at all.
Also what must be done!
Some things I learned: people who run communications for campaigns usually get a cut of the TV ad buy, so *that’s* why we keep getting solicited for money to run TV commercials when they clearly are not going to reach the majority of 18-35 year old demo that we know we must win.
I've always thought that people are basically good mostly everywhere
That when you scratch the surface of Americans you would find we care about children, we care about our neighbors, our communities, we care about kids’ futures - not just our own kids but everybody’s kids.
I always thought our hearts were good and people were kind mostly. I still hold on to that idea.
But it is dinged up more than a bit by the 30% /x of this country on the extreme right. If I ever have to leave the islands I’d always thought I’d find a nice quiet neighborhood in America. Now I’m not so sure.
Is the meanness we are reading about and watching something that you see changing people where you are, or are they still mostly kind?
All across this country people who voted Republican their whole lives are trying to figure out
What is next. They are thinking about us and thinking about the nutballs, measuring us v them to figure out where to make their home.
We’ve been told for a really long time there’s no point talking to people who are past persuading. there was a time that that made sense to me too but it doesn’t anymore.
With the head full of lies they’ve been told about us for the last several years and making these decisions with that information largely. One thing you can do to help us is to be kind and hold a space for them. None of us are right all the time. We’ve all made mistakes and almost all of us deserve forgiveness. Try not to rub it in if you can. Try to make space for civil discussion and help them find common ground.
On my part I think it will help me to think about where the wingers went way off the rails as far as our values as Americans. I’ll start there.
Natural hazards on the Big Island- understanding rift zones
https://hilo.hawaii.edu/natural-hazards/volcanoes/riftzones.php?fbclid=IwAR1izEnmstDhdXg5KFFttI1juk_C4DMG3r7YQrthq6DgZNXBtsjuTW4cieoThese two maps help make sense out of the eruption news.
Most eruptions originate at the summits and rift zones of Hualālai, Maunaloa , and Kīlauea. Rift zones are areas where the volcano is rifting or splitting apart. The rock in a rift zone has many cracks and is relatively weak, and thus it is easiest for magma to make its way to the surface through these rift zones. Once at the surface, the lava flows downhill, following local topography. Like water, lava seeks the path of least resistance. Areas downhill of rift zones are more likely to be covered by future lava flows than areas on extinct volcanoes. The U.S. Geological Survey provides lava flow hazard maps via the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.
We have seen this threat before. Rachel Maddow's podcast Ultra tells the story
Of America First. Illuminating, riveting, and if we are smart, instructive.
It’s as if the invisible forces who cultivated the Lauren Boberts and EmptyGs of our era studied this history. I’m persuaded they did. The circus like tactics, the profoundly cynical and anti-American beliefs cloaked in the flag are all too familiar. If you haven’t listened yet, please do. Wherever you listen to podcasts. If you don’t this is a good reason to start.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rachel-maddow-presents-ultra/id1647910854
Debt: The First 5,000 years. David Graeber talk at Google 2012
David has since passed.
Great to hear him again, though.
Seth Abramson on the unlikelihood of replacing Twitter as an effective progressive thought center
Seth wrote the Proof series, Proof of Collusion, Proof of Corruption and Proof of Conspiracy. Read his Substack if you don’t like Twitter.
https://www.sethabramson.net/
https://democraticunderground.com/100217325136
I’m not doing to respond to those who dislike Twitter because I have windmills to go tilt. I think this bears some thought here. Aloha everyone.
Seth Abramson
We mustn’t forget how many years it took for Twitter to become the nation’s political water cooler. Every media outlet is here; every politician is here; every journalist is here; every pundit is here. Don’t fool yourself: it’d take any other site over a decade to become Twitter.
PS/ I understand folks having accounts elsewhere. I do too; I’m on Substack (at both PROOF and RETRO), Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, and now even Mastodon. But I’d be deceiving myself if I thought any of those sites will *ever* hold a candle to what political Twitter is right now.
PS2/ Yes—Elon Musk is a petulant manchild who is wreaking havoc on Twitter right now. But things *will* settle down here. And I do not want to let a conservative troll like Musk break up what is currently the best gathering place in the world for progressive voters and politicos.
PS3/ While I don’t think it was his purpose, the fact remains that if Musk manages to scatter America’s progressives across 10+ websites with a tiny fraction of Twitter’s usability and audience—Tribel Social, Counter Social, Mastodon, Blue Sky et. al.—the far right will have won.
PS4/ And what is strangest of all to me is the normally savvy political people I know on here who seem to honestly believe that what Twitter is for American progressives can be recreated anywhere else in under a decade.
That’s simply not how digital communities form or function.
PS5/ Right now I see only one medium-term danger for Twitter: that the real plan Musk had for giving everyone a checkmark is to start over the process of identifying who’s a public figure, with it now being mostly *conservatives*—affecting how the platform works for progressives.
PS6/ If Musk were acting in good faith—which thus far he clearly has not been—he would have issued a secondary “public figure” notation to all those (432,000 people in all) who are *currently* verified before allowing anonymous users to be verified without identifying themselves.
PS7/ But I’m not convinced that content moderation here is going to change much long-term. I think users will continue to be able to use Twitter for free if they choose to. I think monetization options will continue to be subtle *enough* that they don’t much distract from the UX.
PS8/ Mastodon is confusing as hell and run by just one person. Other non-Twitter options equally have major Achilles heels. Twitter became what it is because it is generally speaking elegantly designed, incredibly usable, and the *consensus pick* of tens of millions of Americans.
PS9/ No one anywhere needs to take my advice (obviously). But my candid advice would be to stay on Twitter and use Twitter primarily unless and until the site literally falls apart—which at this point I think any expert would tell you there is a less than 10% chance of happening.
PS10/ But I’ll also make a prediction: given that the neo-Nazis already have Gab, Parler, GTTR, Truth Social, and even—let’s admit it—the political quadrant of Facebook, if progressives now cede *Twitter* to them and then scatter to the wind, it will be a major blow to democracy.
• • •
Timothy Snyder on Ukraine, costs and preserving security. Must be read.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1589260108537610240.htmlI have tried to paste the whole over and over and can not. It won’t. You’ll need to click the link. I understand the hesitancy. I feel it often here too. It’s the unrolled Twitter thread from Timothy Snyder, promise.
Midway:
Timothy Snyder
@TimothyDSnyder
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8h
The Ukrainians have reduced the possibility of Chinese aggression through Russia, and made direct Chinese aggression less likely. They have done all of this just by defending themselves, without making any move against China. 7/
Timothy Snyder
@TimothyDSnyder
·
8h
Without the Ukrainians, the United States would lack the policy instruments for this. By resisting, Ukrainians created an opportunity for U.S. policy that would not otherwise have existed. 8/
Timothy Snyder
@TimothyDSnyder
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8h
No American lives have been placed at risk. U.S. assistance to Ukraine amounts to a rounding error in the defense budget. 9/
Timothy Snyder
@TimothyDSnyder
·
8h
The gains Ukrainian resistance brings to American security are so enormous that the US national security establishment is embarrassed to speak of them directly. 10/
Timothy Snyder
@TimothyDSnyder
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8h
It is awkward to say that another country is doing so much for us. It is awkward to say that Ukrainian resistance has done more for the safety of Americans than any U.S. policy since the end of the cold war. But it is true and must be said. 11/
Timothy Snyder
@TimothyDSnyder
·
8h
Reversing the U.S. policy of aiding Ukraine will undo all of these gains. There is still time to revive Russia and reassure China, which is what ending support of Ukraine will mean. Such a policy reversal would make Americans far less safe and secure. 12/
Timothy Snyder
@TimothyDSnyder
·
8h
My concerns about the Russian invasion of Ukraine are the prevention of genocide and the defense of democracy. But those who think first of U.S. interests should acknowledge what Ukrainians are doing for American security. The least we can do is be on our own side 13/13
I think our path through this is to pick one line of BS at a time
And share proof that it is complete garbage across all of our individual networks and state wide. Just DUers alone could make a dent in their midterm election if we do so. We could actually help a lot. Plus it leverages their use of false hoods which are all they rely on. What else do they have? Nothing.
Just now logging into DU there was a banner ad that said do you think immigrants should get free stimulus money? Here’s my point for the day: immigrants don’t get stimulus money. Immigrants don’t get food stamps, Medicare, they don’t get shit. In fact they pay into Social Security but they will never collected until they become legal immigrants. So you ( righties) stop worrying about immigrants sponging off the government. That is just not true.
Drumroll… Powerful one on one message follows…
If you were wrong about something you thought you understood to be true, would you want to know about it or not? Would you prefer to be unbothered and remain completely mistaken? Even if it was something very important to your life?
If I were wrong about something I would want to know.
Next up- wingers, Joe Biden is very lucid, very intelligent, and smarter than most of us. That’s all of us, not just the Dems. Next time you see an edited video of him sounding incoherent ask yourself where the unedited video is and listen to it and then ask yourself why they’re lying to you. Here’s a good one to start with:
https://www.c-span.org/video/?514586-101/president-biden-september-11-withdrawal-afghanistan
Have you seen Peacetrain's OP? I'm asking for your ideas to build community.
Peasetrain says we’ve turned the tide before and can do it again.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=16700546
We can and we have got to.
One idea I was batting around is a way for elder ladies (and others too) to tell their stories of life before legal abortion and birth control.
We’d better hurry to get their stories and share them widely.
Large ways and small to help each other in communities- community gardens, free stores https://nomoola.com/…
What are your ideas to build community?
Macro, micro, being love.
Looking forward to hearing them and adopting some.
Profile Information
Gender: FemaleHometown: Honolulu
Home country: ka pae aina Hawai'i
Current location: Honolulu
Member since: Sat Aug 23, 2003, 11:51 PM
Number of posts: 17,110
