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ancianita
ancianita's Journal
ancianita's Journal
June 18, 2019
-- Marijuana laws
-- free college tuition laws,
-- clean energy laws,
-- immigration laws,
-- income inequality and minimum wage laws,
-- family leave laws,
-- union laws,
-- sweeping voter registration laws.
He even sued Trump over the Muslim ban and won.
Inslee, like America's Millennials, is a doer, not a talker.
Sure, the primaries are for people to stand up for candidates with the best ideas and records. And being right is what Democrats do best. So far, we Democrats have learned that being right and DOING right are the proof of presidential executive know-how. Right now, Biden, very arguably, fills that slot. But Jay Inslee is way more accomplished than Biden.
Like the rest of the Democratic candidates, Inslee's been on Rachel Maddow, ABC,NBC, CBS, Bill Maher and all kinds of media interviews. Sure, he doesn't travel all over like Elizabeth Warren, because he's governing a state, while she and the other candidates are not.
Jay Inslee has implemented scaleable models for transforming energy;
he's implemented construction models for the country, and
he vows to re-establish America's international work with other countries doing the same things through the Paris Climate Accord.
Jay Inslee's Climate Change Mobilization Project if far reaching beyond our borders, and will be taken seriously by America's allies.
Right now, Jay Inslee the only Democratic leader who knows how to do what it takes to stay below the 2 Centigree threshhold from which there will be no return, and how to get the funding to do it.
What makes Inslee best qualified? He is, right now, a state governor, which is a whole level of executive -- "execution" of decisions, law writing, shepherding bills through both parties of the statehouse, implementing and monitoring laws -- experience that none of the other Democratic candidates have.
He's spent several terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, therefore has a federal knowledge of its processes in serving both national interests and his state's interests -- experience they don't have. He's been president of the National Governors Association, which puts him in good relations with a lot of red state governors -- experience the other candidates haven't got.
There is no oppo on Jay Inslee; he's clean.
His donor list is clean -- unions, SIX First Nations Tribes, university and tech money.
Inslee's also got tough chops for a national debate.
Finally, and not for nothing, his youth puts him into the same age advantage category as the younger candidates.
Jay Inslee, more than any other presidential candidate in the Democratic Party,
has shown the widest range of can-do legislative leadership on the issues youth care about.
Count your "right" or "electable" candidate by consensus building. That's fine politics. But to me,
what is right is the right that gets done.
Governor Jay Inslee is chief executive of the state rated #1 in the country by U.S. News and World Report, and is the most qualified to be the chief executive of the United States.
What's Clearer Now Is This: What is right is the right that gets done.
Of all the candidates whose issues have been brought up in the Democratic Party Primary, Jay Inslee stands out as the only one who has already enacted in his state-- Marijuana laws
-- free college tuition laws,
-- clean energy laws,
-- immigration laws,
-- income inequality and minimum wage laws,
-- family leave laws,
-- union laws,
-- sweeping voter registration laws.
He even sued Trump over the Muslim ban and won.
Inslee, like America's Millennials, is a doer, not a talker.
Sure, the primaries are for people to stand up for candidates with the best ideas and records. And being right is what Democrats do best. So far, we Democrats have learned that being right and DOING right are the proof of presidential executive know-how. Right now, Biden, very arguably, fills that slot. But Jay Inslee is way more accomplished than Biden.
Like the rest of the Democratic candidates, Inslee's been on Rachel Maddow, ABC,NBC, CBS, Bill Maher and all kinds of media interviews. Sure, he doesn't travel all over like Elizabeth Warren, because he's governing a state, while she and the other candidates are not.
Jay Inslee has implemented scaleable models for transforming energy;
he's implemented construction models for the country, and
he vows to re-establish America's international work with other countries doing the same things through the Paris Climate Accord.
Jay Inslee's Climate Change Mobilization Project if far reaching beyond our borders, and will be taken seriously by America's allies.
Right now, Jay Inslee the only Democratic leader who knows how to do what it takes to stay below the 2 Centigree threshhold from which there will be no return, and how to get the funding to do it.
What makes Inslee best qualified? He is, right now, a state governor, which is a whole level of executive -- "execution" of decisions, law writing, shepherding bills through both parties of the statehouse, implementing and monitoring laws -- experience that none of the other Democratic candidates have.
He's spent several terms in the U.S. House of Representatives, therefore has a federal knowledge of its processes in serving both national interests and his state's interests -- experience they don't have. He's been president of the National Governors Association, which puts him in good relations with a lot of red state governors -- experience the other candidates haven't got.
There is no oppo on Jay Inslee; he's clean.
His donor list is clean -- unions, SIX First Nations Tribes, university and tech money.
Inslee's also got tough chops for a national debate.
Finally, and not for nothing, his youth puts him into the same age advantage category as the younger candidates.
Jay Inslee, more than any other presidential candidate in the Democratic Party,
has shown the widest range of can-do legislative leadership on the issues youth care about.
Count your "right" or "electable" candidate by consensus building. That's fine politics. But to me,
what is right is the right that gets done.
Governor Jay Inslee is chief executive of the state rated #1 in the country by U.S. News and World Report, and is the most qualified to be the chief executive of the United States.
June 17, 2019
How will they do it? The Kremlin will simply amplify the readily available American-made content to further divide the U.S. electorate.
To sow doubt within political parties is what divisive troll polls do. Look at the sampling, data, interpretations in their reports, and decide who gains.
It's not Democrats. It's never Democrats who gain.
Unity is not uniformity. Support is unity in spite of disagreements. Dissent is not anti-party, anti-American or unpatriotic when grounded in the realities of now and history.
We must be careful how we promote any polls before the Democratic National Convention.
Remember Clint Watts' Counterintelligence Advice On Russia When Reacting To Internal Polls
Right now we are in the troll poll zone.
In this zone, troll polls divide within party lines and unite across ideologies. They do it early so that their candidate can play on those divisions during the General Election debates.
Watts, head of FBI counterintel, has told us:
The Kremlin wants Americans on both sides of the political spectrum -- far right, far left -- to use the same talking points even if they have drastically different ideologies:
-- America should withdraw from foreign battlefields and global markets, and
-- democracy is a corrupt sham that can’t be trusted.
-- America should withdraw from foreign battlefields and global markets, and
-- democracy is a corrupt sham that can’t be trusted.
How will they do it? The Kremlin will simply amplify the readily available American-made content to further divide the U.S. electorate.
Putin’s propagandists will employ the “Five R’s” on American conservatives:
-- remind Americans of their missteps,
-- repost (reshare & retweet) organic American content supporting Russia’s agenda,
-- repurpose vitriolic American narratives to manipulate unwitting audiences,
-- repeat White House attacks on other Americans (women, blacks, Latinos) and
-- route conspiracies and alternative content through fringe populist information sources (even self-defined 'liberal' sources)
-- remind Americans of their missteps,
-- repost (reshare & retweet) organic American content supporting Russia’s agenda,
-- repurpose vitriolic American narratives to manipulate unwitting audiences,
-- repeat White House attacks on other Americans (women, blacks, Latinos) and
-- route conspiracies and alternative content through fringe populist information sources (even self-defined 'liberal' sources)
To sow doubt within political parties is what divisive troll polls do. Look at the sampling, data, interpretations in their reports, and decide who gains.
It's not Democrats. It's never Democrats who gain.
Unity is not uniformity. Support is unity in spite of disagreements. Dissent is not anti-party, anti-American or unpatriotic when grounded in the realities of now and history.
We must be careful how we promote any polls before the Democratic National Convention.
June 17, 2019
https://www.thedailybeast.com/elizabeth-warren-and-kamala-harris-are-being-held-back-by-sexist-voters-exclusive-poll-finds
Daily Beast's shiny new factoid: a problem weighs women down in politics! Some men said women aren't "effective"!
Let us progressives -- 80% of Democratic men, 100% of Democratic women and 100% of the DB's non-voting readers -- wring hands, shake heads, look away, walk away from the second class 'helpmate' fate that is women's lot in politics.
Across continents, four years ago, men together actually weighed Hillary down. While other men of this continent locked into the hypnotic "lock her up" chants of zombification. Dominionists, evangelicals, neonazis, FBI investigations, joined in the banality of fear and hate.
Today they whip out their their right wing shade mantle. Cool-ass media grab it, swing it around as a buzzy, breezy "exclusive" poll sample with shiny new data!
See what 20% of Democratic Party men think of Democratic Party women in politics? These men and their out-sized opinions -- Doubt women! And they think their neighbors doubt women!
But look here:
The right wing talking points -- have they flipped?? -- are the continental dividers flipping on women again??
Even Nicole Wallace reports on Fox News just now -- FOX NEWS reports that each and every Democratic woman candidate beats Trump in their latest NON-exclusive head-to-head match-up poll!
If you buy into "exclusive" samples, or even "representative" samples that are chronically problematic in "representing" a huge country like ours, you're likely to buy into whatever "new" data it tries to churn the rest of us with -- however invalid and unreliable that data really is. However early in the 2020 cycle they are. However wrong the "woman problem" question is just by being asked as an "agree/disagree statement":
Back to the Daily Beast "exclusive" poll:
The 20% who say women are "less effective" are wrong. It's men in govt who are "less responsive" to women leaders -- they are the problem. Not women's so-called effectiveness.
Any men's failure to see women leaders' ideas because they can't see past women having the ideas is what weighs women down.
Women not only have to
-- fight for their ideas and actions, first as theirs, second as worth hearing, they have to
-- fight against their equals who refuse to live with women's equality, who thus find any pretext for undermining women's effectiveness.
Fuck these traffickers in doubt data, and the right wing, Russia-driven troll poll horse they ride in on.
Now, about Governor Jay Inslee ...
Exclusive Polls Gonna Exclude -- The Safe Spaces For Sexist and Racist Doubt Churning
Here comes the Daily Beast's "exclusive" poll.https://www.thedailybeast.com/elizabeth-warren-and-kamala-harris-are-being-held-back-by-sexist-voters-exclusive-poll-finds
Daily Beast's shiny new factoid: a problem weighs women down in politics! Some men said women aren't "effective"!
Let us progressives -- 80% of Democratic men, 100% of Democratic women and 100% of the DB's non-voting readers -- wring hands, shake heads, look away, walk away from the second class 'helpmate' fate that is women's lot in politics.
Across continents, four years ago, men together actually weighed Hillary down. While other men of this continent locked into the hypnotic "lock her up" chants of zombification. Dominionists, evangelicals, neonazis, FBI investigations, joined in the banality of fear and hate.
Today they whip out their their right wing shade mantle. Cool-ass media grab it, swing it around as a buzzy, breezy "exclusive" poll sample with shiny new data!
See what 20% of Democratic Party men think of Democratic Party women in politics? These men and their out-sized opinions -- Doubt women! And they think their neighbors doubt women!
But look here:
The right wing talking points -- have they flipped?? -- are the continental dividers flipping on women again??
Even Nicole Wallace reports on Fox News just now -- FOX NEWS reports that each and every Democratic woman candidate beats Trump in their latest NON-exclusive head-to-head match-up poll!
If you buy into "exclusive" samples, or even "representative" samples that are chronically problematic in "representing" a huge country like ours, you're likely to buy into whatever "new" data it tries to churn the rest of us with -- however invalid and unreliable that data really is. However early in the 2020 cycle they are. However wrong the "woman problem" question is just by being asked as an "agree/disagree statement":
"they agreed with the sentiment that women are “less effective in politics than men.”
Back to the Daily Beast "exclusive" poll:
The 20% who say women are "less effective" are wrong. It's men in govt who are "less responsive" to women leaders -- they are the problem. Not women's so-called effectiveness.
Any men's failure to see women leaders' ideas because they can't see past women having the ideas is what weighs women down.
Women not only have to
-- fight for their ideas and actions, first as theirs, second as worth hearing, they have to
-- fight against their equals who refuse to live with women's equality, who thus find any pretext for undermining women's effectiveness.
Fuck these traffickers in doubt data, and the right wing, Russia-driven troll poll horse they ride in on.
Now, about Governor Jay Inslee ...
June 16, 2019
A Happy Fathers Day Wish
Incredible photography and new systems analyses make this series beyond anything of its kind before.
Every episode awes the eyes, and surprises with new information.
David Attenborough's subtly warm voice reminds us of Earth's dynamically interlocking ecosystems, how we can help preserve them and ourselves.
In a time of exhausting political battle, this series broadens outlooks, calms the heart, and raises the spirit.
June 9, 2019
Jerry Carcetti, Jerry Brown, the Pentagon, Greenpeace, NARAL and immigration organizations agree that without climate change as a top priority of the next president -- diminished and denigrated here as a MERE single issue strategy of an unnamed Democratic candidate -- other issues will also take a back seat, and problems of this country will not get solved, except by piecemeal effort.
Do not keep beating this drum. It amounts to the zero sum politics of blowing out any candidate's candle, as if the others' candles will shine brighter. They won't. Keep it up and DU gets darker.
The Democratic goal of beating Trump in 2020 is not by promoting just a frontrunner's "electability," but to make the party's plan for promoting a cleaner, greener future for a country awash in Big Oil's pollution because of its lobby and campaign money onslaught.
Support Inslee by a) giving him a chance, or b) saying nothing if you can't stay positive.
I've argued hard and long on behalf of our women candidates, Biden and others. There's no reason for me or anyone to dedicate a label of "single issue" to any candidate, anywhere in DU. It's wrong.
"Single issue" is what Republicans campaign on. Not Democrats. And not this Democratic governor.
I Repeat: Inslee Is NOT a "Single Issue" Candidate.
Let's take Governor Jay Inslee, who many hide behind the "single issue" label in order to hide their opposition to -- not even support -- which is what we should be doing with all our candidates.
Climate change as a policy priority of a Democratic candidate is the issue that supports all the issues that the Democratic Party claims to support.
Making Climate Change the top priority of an Inslee presidency that will impact ALL THE ISSUES of this election
-- foreign policy and state department work with our NATO allies and southern neighbors in this hemisphere
-- immigration policy that deals with reform of restrictive asylum and immigration laws
-- economic policy that reflects the infrastructure projects of the Green New Deal, protects job training transition projects and grows the overall economy, saving patchwork spending on disasters that are no longer "natural
-- social policy which improves the voting rights of all citizens no matter race, sex or religion
-- education policy which increases support for science based policy
I could go on.
Inslee's transition plan will be a scale up of Washington's transition plan that protects workers by training them, subsidizing business creation that includes building solar plants, among other projects.
It's health care, national security with climate refugees at our border, an economic issue of preventing cascading climate disasters.
Jerry Carcetti, Jerry Brown, the Pentagon, Greenpeace, NARAL and immigration organizations agree that without climate change as a top priority of the next president -- diminished and denigrated here as a MERE single issue strategy of an unnamed Democratic candidate -- other issues will also take a back seat, and problems of this country will not get solved, except by piecemeal effort.
Do not keep beating this drum. It amounts to the zero sum politics of blowing out any candidate's candle, as if the others' candles will shine brighter. They won't. Keep it up and DU gets darker.
The Democratic goal of beating Trump in 2020 is not by promoting just a frontrunner's "electability," but to make the party's plan for promoting a cleaner, greener future for a country awash in Big Oil's pollution because of its lobby and campaign money onslaught.
Support Inslee by a) giving him a chance, or b) saying nothing if you can't stay positive.
I've argued hard and long on behalf of our women candidates, Biden and others. There's no reason for me or anyone to dedicate a label of "single issue" to any candidate, anywhere in DU. It's wrong.
"Single issue" is what Republicans campaign on. Not Democrats. And not this Democratic governor.
June 9, 2019
Inslee Keeps Trump Rollbacks on Environment Front and Center
From Inslee's Facebook page:
"The president doesn’t care about what’s best for the Americans. He has chosen polluters over people at every turn."
June 9, 2019
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/28/18629833/climate-change-2019-green-new-deal?fbclid=IwAR2MUCfPZ-_341SObBun_Yr0C8NLV3NYfTS-kQa92ODOHhEjHhxIpkkpDHw
?ve=1&tl=1
Stop obsessing over your environmental "sins." Fight the oil and gas industry instead.
A good article for those of us feeling helpless about climate change.
While we’re busy testing each other’s purity, we let the government and industries — the authors of said devastation — off the hook completely.
This overemphasis on individual action shames people for their everyday activities, things they can barely avoid doing because of the fossil fuel-dependent system they were born into.
This overemphasis on individual action shames people for their everyday activities, things they can barely avoid doing because of the fossil fuel-dependent system they were born into.
https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/5/28/18629833/climate-change-2019-green-new-deal?fbclid=IwAR2MUCfPZ-_341SObBun_Yr0C8NLV3NYfTS-kQa92ODOHhEjHhxIpkkpDHw
I don’t care how long you’ve been engaged in the climate conversation, 10 years or 10 seconds. I don’t care how many statistics you can rattle off.
I don’t need you to be all-solar-everything to be an environmentalist. I don’t need you to be vegan-er than thou, or me, for that matter. I don’t care if you are eating a burger right this minute.
I don’t even care if you work on an oil rig. In some parts of the country, those are the only jobs that pay enough for you to feed your family. And I don’t blame workers for that. I blame their employers. I blame the industry that is choking us all, and the government that is letting them do it.
All I need you to do is want a livable future. This is your planet, and no one can advocate for it like you can. No one can protect it like you can.
We have 11 years — not to start but to finish saving the planet.
I’m not here to absolve you. And I’m not here to abdicate you. I am here to fight with you.
I don’t need you to be all-solar-everything to be an environmentalist. I don’t need you to be vegan-er than thou, or me, for that matter. I don’t care if you are eating a burger right this minute.
I don’t even care if you work on an oil rig. In some parts of the country, those are the only jobs that pay enough for you to feed your family. And I don’t blame workers for that. I blame their employers. I blame the industry that is choking us all, and the government that is letting them do it.
All I need you to do is want a livable future. This is your planet, and no one can advocate for it like you can. No one can protect it like you can.
We have 11 years — not to start but to finish saving the planet.
I’m not here to absolve you. And I’m not here to abdicate you. I am here to fight with you.
?ve=1&tl=1
June 8, 2019
https://earther.gizmodo.com/jay-inslee-is-actually-taking-the-climate-refugee-crisi-1835293779?fbclid=IwAR3t4A9enfjaPkAfgMCnLgPvMxYrauXObFVMDdO7ZMdVSwcZErNH31F9mvI
Jay Inslee Is Actually Taking the Climate Refugee Crisis Seriously
In a future where storms are more powerful and entire communities are destroyed, people are going to need somewhere to go. They’re gonna need new homes—and a leader willing to let them in.
Washington State governor and White House hopeful Jay Inslee might be that leader. This week, Inslee became the first U.S. presidential candidate to include immigration policy in a formal climate plan. Released Wednesday, the Global Climate Mobilization Plan details his international policy approach to climate change, including how climate change is exacerbating the world’s refugee crisis and will continue to do so.
It’s right in line with Inslee’s $9 trillion climate plan to transform the U.S. economy to one revolved around clean energy and equity. He wants to make sure the U.S. isn’t the only one that makes it out of this mess in one piece. And less developed countries are even more vulnerable.
Washington State governor and White House hopeful Jay Inslee might be that leader. This week, Inslee became the first U.S. presidential candidate to include immigration policy in a formal climate plan. Released Wednesday, the Global Climate Mobilization Plan details his international policy approach to climate change, including how climate change is exacerbating the world’s refugee crisis and will continue to do so.
It’s right in line with Inslee’s $9 trillion climate plan to transform the U.S. economy to one revolved around clean energy and equity. He wants to make sure the U.S. isn’t the only one that makes it out of this mess in one piece. And less developed countries are even more vulnerable.
Inslee wants us to face that reality head-on. In his 50-page plan, the Washington governor lays out specific strategies for how to help climate refugees including increasing annual refugee admissions to 110,000, withdrawing U.S. military personnel from the border, reinstating temporary protected status to immigrants from Haiti and El Salvador, launching a refugee resettlement program, and more. His plan places a specific emphasis on countries in the Northern Triangle—Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador—by providing $450 million in funding to help them tackle poverty, education, and agriculture.
While the new plan mentions national security, it isn’t a plan meant to protect the United States per se, but vulnerable communities around the world. Whether you support Inslee or not, you gotta give the man credit for that. It’s easy to sell something on the premise that it’s good for the U.S.; it’s harder to sell it on the premise that it’s good for, well, outsiders.
While the new plan mentions national security, it isn’t a plan meant to protect the United States per se, but vulnerable communities around the world. Whether you support Inslee or not, you gotta give the man credit for that. It’s easy to sell something on the premise that it’s good for the U.S.; it’s harder to sell it on the premise that it’s good for, well, outsiders.
“To have U.S. politicians recognize linkages between climate change and immigration is a necessary step forward, as effective policy solutions can’t be developed absent an accurate understanding of the reasons why people migrate,” said Michelle Mittelstadt, the communications director for the Migration Policy Institute
But it’s way too soon to speculate on that as the polls show less than 1 percent of voters have their eyes set on him. And other Democratic candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden have released their own climate plans, too.
Now, how about that climate debate to hear what they all got to say?
But it’s way too soon to speculate on that as the polls show less than 1 percent of voters have their eyes set on him. And other Democratic candidates like Elizabeth Warren and Joe Biden have released their own climate plans, too.
Now, how about that climate debate to hear what they all got to say?
https://earther.gizmodo.com/jay-inslee-is-actually-taking-the-climate-refugee-crisi-1835293779?fbclid=IwAR3t4A9enfjaPkAfgMCnLgPvMxYrauXObFVMDdO7ZMdVSwcZErNH31F9mvI
June 8, 2019
Nicholas Kristof's NYT Report
https://www.marshallnewsmessenger.com/opinion/columns/nicholas-kristof-guatemalans-can-watch-crops-wither-and-die-or/article_2af84ed4-8800-11e9-8105-630fafcae82a.html
Climate Crisis Is Already Behind Migration At The US Border
Nicholas Kristof's NYT Report
https://www.marshallnewsmessenger.com/opinion/columns/nicholas-kristof-guatemalans-can-watch-crops-wither-and-die-or/article_2af84ed4-8800-11e9-8105-630fafcae82a.html
Yes, of course: It’s time to note the standard caveat that it’s impossible to link any particular drought or hurricane to long-term climate change. But that feels like a hollow excuse when you’re facing a young mom who has lost both of her children because of impoverishment from drought.
“The great majority of these kids will migrate,” Luis Armando Jiménez, principal of a rural middle school, told me as he pointed to his students in the courtyard. “There is not enough rain, so their only option is to migrate.”
As they see their own crops wither, families watch luckier households build new homes or buy motorcycles because of money sent back by a relative working in the U.S. Some of these new homes have U.S. flags painted on them.
Guatemalans understand the peril — in Jorge Jorge’s village, six people have died recently while traveling to the U.S. But the risk is preferable to remaining in a desiccating land that seems without a future.
There’s some evidence that aid programs can help farmers adjust to climate change and reduce the desire to emigrate. But Trump is choosing the worst combination of responses: cutting those aid programs while denying climate change.
“The great majority of these kids will migrate,” Luis Armando Jiménez, principal of a rural middle school, told me as he pointed to his students in the courtyard. “There is not enough rain, so their only option is to migrate.”
As they see their own crops wither, families watch luckier households build new homes or buy motorcycles because of money sent back by a relative working in the U.S. Some of these new homes have U.S. flags painted on them.
Guatemalans understand the peril — in Jorge Jorge’s village, six people have died recently while traveling to the U.S. But the risk is preferable to remaining in a desiccating land that seems without a future.
There’s some evidence that aid programs can help farmers adjust to climate change and reduce the desire to emigrate. But Trump is choosing the worst combination of responses: cutting those aid programs while denying climate change.
June 8, 2019
In the drive toward the 2020 presidential election, we express frustration about who gets to define this country.
Because that is our nation's big question.
Can we see our history as a definitional fight?
Can we see that America IS a fight?
We here know we're not "at the end of history," and so who will write our history.
If we, as liberal nationalists, want Lapore's "New Americanism," to prevail, should we assume that the Founders were right or wrong to frame our nation as a nation of laws? or an idea? or a work in progress? or racist?
Can the Law survive the 40-year nationalist assault (with multiple foreign state incursions) that we've now come to see in its entirety?
We might not discuss these ideas fully; still, the questions they raise are worth our thought.
Jill Lapore: The Founders Wrote That America Is A Nation of Asylum -- Were They Right Or Wrong?
The following short history of Americanism comes from Jill Lepore's newest book, This America -- The Case For The Nation(2019). I highly recommend that DU read this
short, pithy, good framing of how we've seen and could see our nation. It follows upon her longer, but amazing These Truths: A History of the United States (2018).
My summary of her major ideas:
The United States was founded as an asylum and refuge: a sanctuary.
Thomas Paine in Commons Sense called America "an asylum for mankind."
The Declaration Of Independence cites as one of the abuses of the king, his having discouraged and even prevented people from coming to the colonies by "Obstructing Laws for Naturalization" and "refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither."
George Washington wrote in 1788: "I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong."
Thomas Jefferson in 1817 described the United States as offering "a sanctuary for those whom the misrule of Europe may compel to seek happiness in other climes."
Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing wrote in 1823, "We love our country, but not blindly...In all nations we recognize one great family"
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1858: "We are the Romans of modernity... a great assimilating people."
It was in this tradition that Barack Obama introduced himself to America in 2008: " I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. These people are part of me. And they are a part of America.... I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins and uncles of every race and hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible."
Thomas Paine in Commons Sense called America "an asylum for mankind."
The Declaration Of Independence cites as one of the abuses of the king, his having discouraged and even prevented people from coming to the colonies by "Obstructing Laws for Naturalization" and "refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither."
George Washington wrote in 1788: "I had always hoped that this land might become a safe & agreeable Asylum to the virtuous & persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong."
Thomas Jefferson in 1817 described the United States as offering "a sanctuary for those whom the misrule of Europe may compel to seek happiness in other climes."
Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing wrote in 1823, "We love our country, but not blindly...In all nations we recognize one great family"
Oliver Wendell Holmes, 1858: "We are the Romans of modernity... a great assimilating people."
It was in this tradition that Barack Obama introduced himself to America in 2008: " I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. These people are part of me. And they are a part of America.... I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, cousins and uncles of every race and hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible."
This was a form of patriotism.
The word "nationalism" never existed either in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution or America's first dictionary. The word didn't exist until the end of 18th Century, and the thing itself not until the 19th Century.
Today, people confuse nationalism with patriotism. There's nothing wrong with loving the place where you live and the people in it, and in that sense, the two words meant more or less the same thing.
Liberal nationalism is patriotism. Illiberal nationalism is not.
But in the 20th and 21st Centuries, nationalism has come to mean somethign different from patriotism, something fierce...violent -- less a love for your own country than a hatred of other countries and their people and a a hatred of people within your own country who don't belong to an ethnic, racial, or religious majority.
Immigration policy is a topic for political debate; reasonable people disagree. But hating immigrants, as if they were lesser humans, is a form of nationalism that has nothing to do with patriotism.
Trade policy is a topic for political debate; reasonable people disagree. But hating globalists, as if they were fiends, is a form of nationalism that has nothing to do with patriotism.
Historians who tried to write histories of liberal nationalism failed to account for all our racism. When, in the 70's, they realized that they would be accused of complicity, American historians have backed away from defining what America is.
A clear-eyed reckoning of a "new Americanism" would be a clear-eyed reckoning with its history of sorrows no less than its glories. Looking backward and forward, a new history would know that right wrongs no man.
But if liberal nationalists do not start asking and answering our questions about who we are, illiberal nationalists will. They will call America, as Hannity said, "a carnage." They'll call immigrants "animals" and other countries "shitholes." They call themselves nationalists.
The word "nationalism" never existed either in the Declaration of Independence, Constitution or America's first dictionary. The word didn't exist until the end of 18th Century, and the thing itself not until the 19th Century.
Today, people confuse nationalism with patriotism. There's nothing wrong with loving the place where you live and the people in it, and in that sense, the two words meant more or less the same thing.
Liberal nationalism is patriotism. Illiberal nationalism is not.
But in the 20th and 21st Centuries, nationalism has come to mean somethign different from patriotism, something fierce...violent -- less a love for your own country than a hatred of other countries and their people and a a hatred of people within your own country who don't belong to an ethnic, racial, or religious majority.
Immigration policy is a topic for political debate; reasonable people disagree. But hating immigrants, as if they were lesser humans, is a form of nationalism that has nothing to do with patriotism.
Trade policy is a topic for political debate; reasonable people disagree. But hating globalists, as if they were fiends, is a form of nationalism that has nothing to do with patriotism.
Historians who tried to write histories of liberal nationalism failed to account for all our racism. When, in the 70's, they realized that they would be accused of complicity, American historians have backed away from defining what America is.
A clear-eyed reckoning of a "new Americanism" would be a clear-eyed reckoning with its history of sorrows no less than its glories. Looking backward and forward, a new history would know that right wrongs no man.
But if liberal nationalists do not start asking and answering our questions about who we are, illiberal nationalists will. They will call America, as Hannity said, "a carnage." They'll call immigrants "animals" and other countries "shitholes." They call themselves nationalists.
In the drive toward the 2020 presidential election, we express frustration about who gets to define this country.
Because that is our nation's big question.
Can we see our history as a definitional fight?
Can we see that America IS a fight?
We here know we're not "at the end of history," and so who will write our history.
If we, as liberal nationalists, want Lapore's "New Americanism," to prevail, should we assume that the Founders were right or wrong to frame our nation as a nation of laws? or an idea? or a work in progress? or racist?
Can the Law survive the 40-year nationalist assault (with multiple foreign state incursions) that we've now come to see in its entirety?
We might not discuss these ideas fully; still, the questions they raise are worth our thought.
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Gender: Do not displayHometown: New England, The South, Midwest
Home country: USA
Current location: Sarasota
Member since: Sat Mar 5, 2011, 12:32 PM
Number of posts: 36,023
