It must have been 8:30 or 9 am, California time, and I felt disoriented because I’d been up very late writing for my dissertation. I had a small tv I kept in the kitchen for the evening news, and had actually never watched CNN, not being a news-junkie at that time. I watched for awhile in shock, then went out in my bathrobe to get the paper. My neighbor friend laughingly called out asking why I was up so early, and I told her to turn on CNN, as New York City had been attacked.

My experience of 9-11 and all that followed was so prosaic, because of being so far away. The endless loop on tv, the endless repetition of the timeline that kept me baffled for days because I had been asleep and they kept talking about times that were aligning with the the time my daughter called me, among other things. I kept thinking I was seeing part of it in real time. It took me over a week to sort it out.

Just sheer shock. How? Why?

My sister in Massachusetts and my best friend who worked in D.C. were much closer in every respect. I found out a few years years later that my cousin’s husband, an Admiral, had been working in the Pentagon.

My sister’s two children each knew a classmate who had a grandma on a flight out of Boston. My friend and her husband heard and felt the impact when the plane hit the Pentagon. The Admiral was unharmed but went to work on the horrible job of pulling the dead and wounded out of the Pentagon. My husband had cousins in New Jersey, and my neighbor lady was from New Jersey.

My friend’s husband originated in the Middle East and his name was a dead giveaway. They had some really nasty experiences, and ultimately changed their name. I think there was a quick sorting out of who was really their friend and who wasn’t. She had to travel for her Civil Service job, and was forever after pulled out of the line at the airport for special screening.

Everything changed. I can look back and say that now. I’ve always hated conspiracy theories. But there was something so godsdamned fishy about finding the passports in the rubble of the Towers. I mean,

I wanted to be in the streets, but made myself finish my dissertation first. Then I joined the marchers in my town, was invited to join the local Vets for Peace (I’m a civilian, but they liked me), joined DU, and was very active indeed for the duration of the BushCheney administration. I am proud of the work I did during those years.

Sad to say, the path I thought I would take after getting my doctorate never was fulfilled. I knew I was at a fork in the road, and I felt absolutely compelled to go oppose Bush and his lies and his war. I knew there was a good chance I would not be able to retrace my steps. But all in all, I could not remain silent.

Most of all, love of something beyond one’s self, a love that enlarges and expands the self.

These youngsters who take up arms in our name, they trust us to keep faith with them.

Trump shames us all past endurance.

“I don’t get it. What was in it for them?” To General John Kelly at his son’s Arlington graveside.

I just had to say it. That is all.

*I don’t get it. What was in it for them?*

That is what is meant by “transactional.” The Dotard understands nothing at all outside himself, and nothing outside of buying and selling.

Not honor, or duty, or sacrifice for others. Nothing. He is the Abyss walking on two legs. He is a sucking wound.

If I take a letter to Fed Ex and say I want it delivered from my little town in So Cal to my sister’s little town in NY, do you think they’ll do it for 42 cents?

If my friend wants to order mealy worms or lady bugs for her organic garden, how much will UPS charge for that?

For over 100 years the USPS has delivered live chicks to 4H kids, backyard farmers, and commercial growers — Promptly, alive and cheeping. Our big postal facility in Santa Clarita currently “looks like Armageddon,” according to the people who work there. They came in and not only were boxes and letters jumbled high, but fruit flies and rodents had moved in to dispose of boxes of dead chicks and rotted food parcels. Do you think De Joy gives a rat’s patoot?

Like so many of Trump’s appointments, this guy was brought in to wreck a well-functioning federal department and replace it with a malfunctioning for-profit mega-corporation. De Joy is doing exactly what he was hired to do.

Obama was better prepared, I think. But the forces aligned against Hillary were international in scope.

Whoever wants the American Experiment finished and the glassware in the lab smashed has been at this a long time.

...should solve our problem with our POTUS by removing him from the White House. Invariably, there are a number of other posters who agree. This has happened before, specifically during the Bush/Cheney administration. The difference with this poster is their desire to use the Dept of Homeland Security for this purpose — and DHS was tasked overall with battling the Moms of Portland and other peaceful protestors!

Periodically, there are other OPs by other DUers conveying what they think is the brilliant notion of finishing the work of the Civil War by dividing the states into two or more countries. Or dividing California into 3 states in a mistaken belief that we would then have 6 assured Democratic Senators in the US Senate. That, btw, is a fantasy — the California interior tends to be quite conservative, but are outnumbered and hence outvoted by the people on the coast.

I used to give long involved treatises on why this was all a very bad idea. However, the energy that used to propel me in 2002 has been stomped into utter exhaustion by Donald Trump. Therefore I boil it down as I just did: if we experience a military coup, our republic will be at an end. In this, I will not change my mind.

The person I was responding to has carried this thought from one thread to another. I am not, repeat not following them around. However, I will not let this nonsense go unchallenged if I encounter it.

...still-existing democratic republic, with a Constitution revered the world over. That “200-year old piece of paper” you scorn as toothless has been and remains the template for every other aspiring democracy since our nation was founded.

We are struggling now, and struggling hard. But expecting the DHS to step in, when we can see their fascist methods on display every godsdamned day and night, would put the final nail in the coffin. Who do you think is shooting rubber bullets and throwing tear gas canisters at peaceful protestors? Usually DU posters of your inclination make a plea for a military coup, which would likewise put the final nail in the coffin of our democratic republic.

I always wonder why, in a community that prides itself on an understanding of the US Constitution and civics, there are always a few people who believe the current situation calls for the final dismantling of that Constitution.

You are very eager to throw out the Constitution. As is Trump, may I point out. Why?