Featuring a link to our Good Trouble Live Special; "The Tea" with April Ryan; Brenda Jones; Elaine Weiss; Olivia Julianna; The Democracy Movement; RJ Matson; and Jen Rubin
I just came from a John Lewis good trouble lives on stand out and Trump protest. An enthusiastic greeting from all the cars driving by. We are in Canton Massachusetts and there are probably only approximately 75 of us but we had great signs and we showed up. And we got many many many honks and only a couple of birds ha ha ha. Much enthusiasm from all, all ages and all colors. It was about 85° and the sun had not set yet but as old as we all were, we were enthusiastic and yelled our thanks to all the honkers. I think we should be able to count honkers in our attendance! We had pick up truck honkers and fancy car honkers and little car honkers. All good!
Our Good Trouble and Support Democracy rally in Carlinville, Illinois just concluded. Great spirits, good music, and a lot of people showed up for a relatively small and heavily red town (the count was over 300). There were a lot of very imaginative signs and a spirit of unity. A fine experience.
I am angry, frustrated, and disheartened by what is happening to my country. So I write because, being 92, housebound, living on a pension with diminishing energy, I can only write and think. I want to help, I want to fight. I want to yell from the church tower like Paul Revere and shout, 'The enemy is coming, the enemy is here, the enemy is winning.' But I sit at my desk in my wonderful house in the Berkshires and wage a mental war against my country's enemy, and all I can do is write. It makes me feel better, so I write.
When our flag was raised at the Olympics, I had to hold back my feelings of joy. In comparison, this past Fourth of July, I couldn't feel proud of my country when half of them believe in and cheer Trump.
Warriors, when preparing for a battle, develop war plans or battle plans and follow specific procedures. First, they learn about their enemy. Second, they select the location where the battle will occur. Third, they understand and assess their forces.
And so I develop my battle plans. My enemy is massive and consists of three entities: one is the dark money forces, the second is capitalism, and the third is the middle class.
Trump is not my enemy; he's a clown, buffoon, puppet whose voice is that of the dark money billionaires and multi-millionaires. This enemy, the dark money, is well-organized, well-funded, with billions of dollars at its disposal, and has a long history of an active campaign to change how our government functions to better align with its financial interests.
The second enemy is difficult to define because it is a cultural belief system that is accepted and promoted by the elite and our society as a whole. I believe we have all lived with this mindset without questioning it: that certain people in our culture deserve to be paid more than others. No one questions this; we all agree and see no problem with it. Doctors, surgeons, star athletes, and entrepreneurs should all earn more than the average person or those in other professions. People with a college degree should make more than those with only a high school diploma; this is the core of capitalism, and it is how billionaires are created.
We all think this is right, this is never questioned, this is a socially accepted belief, except maybe it is questioned by some crazy Marxist or Socialist. Perhaps there are those whom we would agree should earn and deserve more pay than the general public, but a thousand percent higher is creating billionaires. No one ever considers what a reasonable increase should be. I offer for consideration two examples of societies that operate under different guidelines for compensating individuals. One is the Mongragon Corporation in Spain, founded by a priest, and has a unique structure where employees are also owners of the business. The other is Marinleda, a town in Spain located in the province of Andalusia.
The third problem is the middle class, both now and in the past. My middle-class never aspired to be millionaires. We wanted a way to have a comfortable life with a lovely house, a job that we liked, good healthcare, possibly a family, and living in a neighborhood with other people like us. We believed in caring for others and left the operation of our country to the politicians. We drank the Kool-Aid provided by the dark money propaganda machine. We avoided our reality by not being concerned with the Tea Party or the fact that Obama's health plan was crippled. That's it! We were essentially asleep at the wheel; we were lost in our dream state. But my middle class is walking out the door, and is already a dying breed. My concern is with the middle class of today, who are foreigners to me, and I don't know how to warn them about the fate of their country. They seem to be a friendly bunch, neither aggressive nor thinking of war or fighting. I sense that the idea of being successful and becoming a millionaire is prevalent in their culture. I may be wrong because I have a limited sample of this population. Somehow, this should be their war, but I am not sensing any overt concern with stopping Trump and his band of marauders. I know that I have read and outlined Project 2025, a 900-page book, and that there are excellent books that summarize it. However, I do not know of anyone else who has read it, including the network commentators, and I doubt that this middle class has taken the time to read this book.
The terrain where the battle will take place presents problems because our enemy already has an advantage, having no resistance from Congress and the courts, and with massive amounts of dark money, has already established a beachhead and launched a total invasion and occupation of Washington.
Upon reviewing my weapons, I realize they are no match for my enemy. Half of Congress is dead in their chairs, nodding in accord with Trump. So I cannot assume they will offer any resistance. The Democratic Party is useless and is led by weak, aged nonfighters who caused Trump to be elected the second time by not acknowledging that Biden was obviously deteriorating. They waited three months before the election to announce that Biden was not running, giving Vice President Harris three months to defeat Trump without any help from them.
I do not see any way to match their funding, which comes from billionaires who started in 1977, such as the Koch brothers, and will continue into the future. I don't think that there is a match for Trump's "Truth Social" with 6.3 million active participants and his fellow billionaires controlling the press and the broadcasting systems. I think the Democrats will take control of Congress in November. Still, the dark money will continue to finance those who support their government takeover. There is the truth that the Republican Party will retake control of Congress in the future elections. The dark money will finance and lobby to obtain its goal of a government designed to increase its wealth.
The dark money has effectively campaigned against any ideas or programs that promote the concept of a country with less capitalism, such as a national health plan, free college tuition, and an increase in social security benefits, and above all, stronger unions.
I return to the idea that the only effective organization to take on the battle is the democratic states that can match the financial resources of the billionaires and reduce the power of the president, as well as control the billionaires' ability to buy members of Congress, because the states are better controlled by their citizens. I wish I had another idea, and if you have one, please share. So I feel as though I've fought my battle, and now I can rest.
I am angry, frustrated, and disheartened by what is happening to my country. So I write because, being 92, housebound, living on a pension with diminishing energy, I can only write and think. I want to help, I want to fight. I want to yell from the church tower like Paul Revere and shout, 'The enemy is coming, the enemy is here, the enemy is winning.' But I sit at my desk in my wonderful house in the Berkshires and wage a mental war against my country's enemy, and all I can do is write. It makes me feel better, so I write.
When our flag was raised at the Olympics, I had to hold back my feelings of joy. In comparison, this past Fourth of July, I couldn't feel proud of my country when half of them believe in and cheer Trump.
Warriors, when preparing for a battle, develop war plans or battle plans and follow specific procedures. First, they learn about their enemy. Second, they select the location where the battle will occur. Third, they understand and assess their forces.
And so I develop my battle plans. My enemy is massive and consists of three entities: one is the dark money forces, the second is capitalism, and the third is the middle class.
Trump is not my enemy; he's a clown, buffoon, puppet whose voice is that of the dark money billionaires and multi-millionaires. This enemy, the dark money, is well-organized, well-funded, with billions of dollars at its disposal, and has a long history of an active campaign to change how our government functions to better align with its financial interests.
The second enemy is difficult to define because it is a cultural belief system that is accepted and promoted by the elite and our society as a whole. I believe we have all lived with this mindset without questioning it: that certain people in our culture deserve to be paid more than others. No one questions this; we all agree and see no problem with it. Doctors, surgeons, star athletes, and entrepreneurs should all earn more than the average person or those in other professions. People with a college degree should make more than those with only a high school diploma; this is the core of capitalism, and it is how billionaires are created.
We all think this is right, this is never questioned, this is a socially accepted belief, except maybe it is questioned by some crazy Marxist or Socialist. Perhaps there are those whom we would agree should earn and deserve more pay than the general public, but a thousand percent higher is creating billionaires. No one ever considers what a reasonable increase should be. I offer for consideration two examples of societies that operate under different guidelines for compensating individuals. One is the Mongragon Corporation in Spain, founded by a priest, and has a unique structure where employees are also owners of the business. The other is Marinleda, a town in Spain located in the province of Andalusia.
The third problem is the middle class, both now and in the past. My middle-class never aspired to be millionaires. We wanted a way to have a comfortable life with a lovely house, a job that we liked, good healthcare, possibly a family, and living in a neighborhood with other people like us. We believed in caring for others and left the operation of our country to the politicians. We drank the Kool-Aid provided by the dark money propaganda machine. We avoided our reality by not being concerned with the Tea Party or the fact that Obama's health plan was crippled. That's it! We were essentially asleep at the wheel; we were lost in our dream state. But my middle class is walking out the door, and is already a dying breed. My concern is with the middle class of today, who are foreigners to me, and I don't know how to warn them about the fate of their country. They seem to be a friendly bunch, neither aggressive nor thinking of war or fighting. I sense that the idea of being successful and becoming a millionaire is prevalent in their culture. I may be wrong because I have a limited sample of this population. Somehow, this should be their war, but I am not sensing any overt concern with stopping Trump and his band of marauders. I know that I have read and outlined Project 2025, a 900-page book, and that there are excellent books that summarize it. However, I do not know of anyone else who has read it, including the network commentators, and I doubt that this middle class has taken the time to read this book.
The terrain where the battle will take place presents problems because our enemy already has an advantage, having no resistance from Congress and the courts, and with massive amounts of dark money, has already established a beachhead and launched a total invasion and occupation of Washington.
Upon reviewing my weapons, I realize they are no match for my enemy. Half of Congress is dead in their chairs, nodding in accord with Trump. So I cannot assume they will offer any resistance. The Democratic Party is useless and is led by weak, aged nonfighters who caused Trump to be elected the second time by not acknowledging that Biden was obviously deteriorating. They waited three months before the election to announce that Biden was not running, giving Vice President Harris three months to defeat Trump without any help from them.
I do not see any way to match their funding, which comes from billionaires who started in 1977, such as the Koch brothers, and will continue into the future. I don't think that there is a match for Trump's "Truth Social" with 6.3 million active participants and his fellow billionaires controlling the press and the broadcasting systems. I think the Democrats will take control of Congress in November. Still, the dark money will continue to finance those who support their government takeover. There is the truth that the Republican Party will retake control of Congress in the future elections. The dark money will finance and lobby to obtain its goal of a government designed to increase its wealth.
The dark money has effectively campaigned against any ideas or programs that promote the concept of a country with less capitalism, such as a national health plan, free college tuition, and an increase in social security benefits, and above all, stronger unions.
I return to the idea that the only effective organization to take on the battle is the democratic states that can match the financial resources of the billionaires and reduce the power of the president, as well as control the billionaires' ability to buy members of Congress, because the states are better controlled by their citizens. I wish I had another idea, and if you have one, please share. So I feel as though I've fought my battle, and now I can rest.
Please warn women that if they wish to vote in 2026 they need to have their legal name match their birth certificate or a passport. This law passed by congress and signed by Trump is designed to strip women of their right to vote. Just like prior acts, women’s civil rights are being stripped from them.
I just came from a John Lewis good trouble lives on stand out and Trump protest. An enthusiastic greeting from all the cars driving by. We are in Canton Massachusetts and there are probably only approximately 75 of us but we had great signs and we showed up. And we got many many many honks and only a couple of birds ha ha ha. Much enthusiasm from all, all ages and all colors. It was about 85° and the sun had not set yet but as old as we all were, we were enthusiastic and yelled our thanks to all the honkers. I think we should be able to count honkers in our attendance! We had pick up truck honkers and fancy car honkers and little car honkers. All good!
Our Good Trouble and Support Democracy rally in Carlinville, Illinois just concluded. Great spirits, good music, and a lot of people showed up for a relatively small and heavily red town (the count was over 300). There were a lot of very imaginative signs and a spirit of unity. A fine experience.
And so I write
I am angry, frustrated, and disheartened by what is happening to my country. So I write because, being 92, housebound, living on a pension with diminishing energy, I can only write and think. I want to help, I want to fight. I want to yell from the church tower like Paul Revere and shout, 'The enemy is coming, the enemy is here, the enemy is winning.' But I sit at my desk in my wonderful house in the Berkshires and wage a mental war against my country's enemy, and all I can do is write. It makes me feel better, so I write.
When our flag was raised at the Olympics, I had to hold back my feelings of joy. In comparison, this past Fourth of July, I couldn't feel proud of my country when half of them believe in and cheer Trump.
Warriors, when preparing for a battle, develop war plans or battle plans and follow specific procedures. First, they learn about their enemy. Second, they select the location where the battle will occur. Third, they understand and assess their forces.
And so I develop my battle plans. My enemy is massive and consists of three entities: one is the dark money forces, the second is capitalism, and the third is the middle class.
Trump is not my enemy; he's a clown, buffoon, puppet whose voice is that of the dark money billionaires and multi-millionaires. This enemy, the dark money, is well-organized, well-funded, with billions of dollars at its disposal, and has a long history of an active campaign to change how our government functions to better align with its financial interests.
The second enemy is difficult to define because it is a cultural belief system that is accepted and promoted by the elite and our society as a whole. I believe we have all lived with this mindset without questioning it: that certain people in our culture deserve to be paid more than others. No one questions this; we all agree and see no problem with it. Doctors, surgeons, star athletes, and entrepreneurs should all earn more than the average person or those in other professions. People with a college degree should make more than those with only a high school diploma; this is the core of capitalism, and it is how billionaires are created.
We all think this is right, this is never questioned, this is a socially accepted belief, except maybe it is questioned by some crazy Marxist or Socialist. Perhaps there are those whom we would agree should earn and deserve more pay than the general public, but a thousand percent higher is creating billionaires. No one ever considers what a reasonable increase should be. I offer for consideration two examples of societies that operate under different guidelines for compensating individuals. One is the Mongragon Corporation in Spain, founded by a priest, and has a unique structure where employees are also owners of the business. The other is Marinleda, a town in Spain located in the province of Andalusia.
The third problem is the middle class, both now and in the past. My middle-class never aspired to be millionaires. We wanted a way to have a comfortable life with a lovely house, a job that we liked, good healthcare, possibly a family, and living in a neighborhood with other people like us. We believed in caring for others and left the operation of our country to the politicians. We drank the Kool-Aid provided by the dark money propaganda machine. We avoided our reality by not being concerned with the Tea Party or the fact that Obama's health plan was crippled. That's it! We were essentially asleep at the wheel; we were lost in our dream state. But my middle class is walking out the door, and is already a dying breed. My concern is with the middle class of today, who are foreigners to me, and I don't know how to warn them about the fate of their country. They seem to be a friendly bunch, neither aggressive nor thinking of war or fighting. I sense that the idea of being successful and becoming a millionaire is prevalent in their culture. I may be wrong because I have a limited sample of this population. Somehow, this should be their war, but I am not sensing any overt concern with stopping Trump and his band of marauders. I know that I have read and outlined Project 2025, a 900-page book, and that there are excellent books that summarize it. However, I do not know of anyone else who has read it, including the network commentators, and I doubt that this middle class has taken the time to read this book.
The terrain where the battle will take place presents problems because our enemy already has an advantage, having no resistance from Congress and the courts, and with massive amounts of dark money, has already established a beachhead and launched a total invasion and occupation of Washington.
Upon reviewing my weapons, I realize they are no match for my enemy. Half of Congress is dead in their chairs, nodding in accord with Trump. So I cannot assume they will offer any resistance. The Democratic Party is useless and is led by weak, aged nonfighters who caused Trump to be elected the second time by not acknowledging that Biden was obviously deteriorating. They waited three months before the election to announce that Biden was not running, giving Vice President Harris three months to defeat Trump without any help from them.
I do not see any way to match their funding, which comes from billionaires who started in 1977, such as the Koch brothers, and will continue into the future. I don't think that there is a match for Trump's "Truth Social" with 6.3 million active participants and his fellow billionaires controlling the press and the broadcasting systems. I think the Democrats will take control of Congress in November. Still, the dark money will continue to finance those who support their government takeover. There is the truth that the Republican Party will retake control of Congress in the future elections. The dark money will finance and lobby to obtain its goal of a government designed to increase its wealth.
The dark money has effectively campaigned against any ideas or programs that promote the concept of a country with less capitalism, such as a national health plan, free college tuition, and an increase in social security benefits, and above all, stronger unions.
I return to the idea that the only effective organization to take on the battle is the democratic states that can match the financial resources of the billionaires and reduce the power of the president, as well as control the billionaires' ability to buy members of Congress, because the states are better controlled by their citizens. I wish I had another idea, and if you have one, please share. So I feel as though I've fought my battle, and now I can rest.
And so I write
I am angry, frustrated, and disheartened by what is happening to my country. So I write because, being 92, housebound, living on a pension with diminishing energy, I can only write and think. I want to help, I want to fight. I want to yell from the church tower like Paul Revere and shout, 'The enemy is coming, the enemy is here, the enemy is winning.' But I sit at my desk in my wonderful house in the Berkshires and wage a mental war against my country's enemy, and all I can do is write. It makes me feel better, so I write.
When our flag was raised at the Olympics, I had to hold back my feelings of joy. In comparison, this past Fourth of July, I couldn't feel proud of my country when half of them believe in and cheer Trump.
Warriors, when preparing for a battle, develop war plans or battle plans and follow specific procedures. First, they learn about their enemy. Second, they select the location where the battle will occur. Third, they understand and assess their forces.
And so I develop my battle plans. My enemy is massive and consists of three entities: one is the dark money forces, the second is capitalism, and the third is the middle class.
Trump is not my enemy; he's a clown, buffoon, puppet whose voice is that of the dark money billionaires and multi-millionaires. This enemy, the dark money, is well-organized, well-funded, with billions of dollars at its disposal, and has a long history of an active campaign to change how our government functions to better align with its financial interests.
The second enemy is difficult to define because it is a cultural belief system that is accepted and promoted by the elite and our society as a whole. I believe we have all lived with this mindset without questioning it: that certain people in our culture deserve to be paid more than others. No one questions this; we all agree and see no problem with it. Doctors, surgeons, star athletes, and entrepreneurs should all earn more than the average person or those in other professions. People with a college degree should make more than those with only a high school diploma; this is the core of capitalism, and it is how billionaires are created.
We all think this is right, this is never questioned, this is a socially accepted belief, except maybe it is questioned by some crazy Marxist or Socialist. Perhaps there are those whom we would agree should earn and deserve more pay than the general public, but a thousand percent higher is creating billionaires. No one ever considers what a reasonable increase should be. I offer for consideration two examples of societies that operate under different guidelines for compensating individuals. One is the Mongragon Corporation in Spain, founded by a priest, and has a unique structure where employees are also owners of the business. The other is Marinleda, a town in Spain located in the province of Andalusia.
The third problem is the middle class, both now and in the past. My middle-class never aspired to be millionaires. We wanted a way to have a comfortable life with a lovely house, a job that we liked, good healthcare, possibly a family, and living in a neighborhood with other people like us. We believed in caring for others and left the operation of our country to the politicians. We drank the Kool-Aid provided by the dark money propaganda machine. We avoided our reality by not being concerned with the Tea Party or the fact that Obama's health plan was crippled. That's it! We were essentially asleep at the wheel; we were lost in our dream state. But my middle class is walking out the door, and is already a dying breed. My concern is with the middle class of today, who are foreigners to me, and I don't know how to warn them about the fate of their country. They seem to be a friendly bunch, neither aggressive nor thinking of war or fighting. I sense that the idea of being successful and becoming a millionaire is prevalent in their culture. I may be wrong because I have a limited sample of this population. Somehow, this should be their war, but I am not sensing any overt concern with stopping Trump and his band of marauders. I know that I have read and outlined Project 2025, a 900-page book, and that there are excellent books that summarize it. However, I do not know of anyone else who has read it, including the network commentators, and I doubt that this middle class has taken the time to read this book.
The terrain where the battle will take place presents problems because our enemy already has an advantage, having no resistance from Congress and the courts, and with massive amounts of dark money, has already established a beachhead and launched a total invasion and occupation of Washington.
Upon reviewing my weapons, I realize they are no match for my enemy. Half of Congress is dead in their chairs, nodding in accord with Trump. So I cannot assume they will offer any resistance. The Democratic Party is useless and is led by weak, aged nonfighters who caused Trump to be elected the second time by not acknowledging that Biden was obviously deteriorating. They waited three months before the election to announce that Biden was not running, giving Vice President Harris three months to defeat Trump without any help from them.
I do not see any way to match their funding, which comes from billionaires who started in 1977, such as the Koch brothers, and will continue into the future. I don't think that there is a match for Trump's "Truth Social" with 6.3 million active participants and his fellow billionaires controlling the press and the broadcasting systems. I think the Democrats will take control of Congress in November. Still, the dark money will continue to finance those who support their government takeover. There is the truth that the Republican Party will retake control of Congress in the future elections. The dark money will finance and lobby to obtain its goal of a government designed to increase its wealth.
The dark money has effectively campaigned against any ideas or programs that promote the concept of a country with less capitalism, such as a national health plan, free college tuition, and an increase in social security benefits, and above all, stronger unions.
I return to the idea that the only effective organization to take on the battle is the democratic states that can match the financial resources of the billionaires and reduce the power of the president, as well as control the billionaires' ability to buy members of Congress, because the states are better controlled by their citizens. I wish I had another idea, and if you have one, please share. So I feel as though I've fought my battle, and now I can rest.
The work you do is amazing. I will protest.
Could the Contrarian comment on the proposed threat to takeover DC. I think it’s a test city with more to come.
Please warn women that if they wish to vote in 2026 they need to have their legal name match their birth certificate or a passport. This law passed by congress and signed by Trump is designed to strip women of their right to vote. Just like prior acts, women’s civil rights are being stripped from them.