I'm just watching SG-1 defeat the human and alien villains on PlutoTV today while playing games on my phone.
I don't want to think or write or move. Yet here I am. Writing. My thought last night was what I said on the Nicole Sandler show while talking about our mutual friend, the late great Joel Silberman. He taught progressive politicians to tell stories that illuminated their messages.
Celebrating the win is important. Even if it's not the kind of win we want. Even if we really shouldn’t be here at all. Also, it's infuriating when Biden talks about Republicans as "My friends across the aisle." Doesn't he know they aren't his friends? Has he learned nothing? We know this group of MAGA Republicans and insurrectionists aren't to be trusted. I suspect Biden does too. But this time his plan worked! So why does this victory feel unsatisfying? I really want those assholes on the right who brought us to this crisis to be stopped. I'd like them to be punished for their reckless behavior, but that's not Biden.
Also, the MSM LOVES this bipartisan stuff. They want to believe there are still rational Republicans. MSNBC especially, since they bring them on all their shows to talk about the GOP in the "good ol days," before Trump. As if the horrific GOP policies and people they promoted pre 2016 were normal. Steve Schmidt, of the Lincoln Project, brought us Sarah Palin!
What I'm suggesting is that we tell stories about our victories. They help us feel good. It's good for our morale. The MSM won't tell these stories because they lurch from crisis to crisis. That is their narrative model. Conflict is news. For them success stories are boring. The winning stories are important to us because the strategy of Trump and the right is to flood the zone with disaster after disaster, crime after crime, and then deny the reality of their losses. (I wrote about that at Spocko's Brain, how we need to KEEP working to crush Trump and the GOP even after we win.)
Trump must be crushed legally, financially, politically and narratively.
Anger is energy. Action is energizing. And Depression is real
I TOTALLY understand why the right stokes anger. It provides energy for them. I've used it in the past to fuel my action against RW media. Taking action can be energizing. And when it looks like all the anger you are feeling and the actions you are taking isn't leading to stopping the right, NOR to getting justice for their horrific actions, the depression can get overwhelming.
The agents of destruction are still out there. They are still powerfully. They are still making money and getting resources and driving their grievance/ victim narrative.
I'm not just "documenting the atrocities" as Atrios likes to say. I try to help people with messages and actions. That includes the choir. Because getting the choir to sing together is important. Picking the right music that meets the moment is crucial. Are we singing about a funeral or celebrating new life at a wedding or baptism? Do we sing in Latin, that only the elite understand, or the people's language?
I believe it's my duty to stop the horrible people on the right and to help others to stop them. I can speak with authority because I HAVE HAD SUCCESS in the past fighting them, both with our narrative and financially. When I tell these stories it's not about self aggrandizement, but because I want to help others to learn, and when we win, to inspire them. WE CAN DO THIS.
I told Nicole the story about how I worked with multiple religious groups, costing Michael Savage millions of dollars and dozens of advertisers. He sued one of them, CAIR, and lost.
A coalition of religious groups called Hate Hurts America cost Michael “Weiner” Savage millions in ad revenue. He sued one of them, CAIR, for copyright violation and RICO, but he lost. Because CAIR followed the guidelines I set up with my KSFO/ABC/Disney case, and the EFF defended them as they did me, CAIR won. And we established the ability to use their own words against them.
On the Chris Hayes show he dismissed Biden's success in a single sentence and went right to the gloom and doom.
I don't want to start with doom and gloom, but I'm gonna ask you this question. A week ago, two days ago, the biggest possible like, exogenous threat right to shake up the economy make things go really bad would be a catastrophe around the debt ceiling and a default. That has now been removed. What's keeping you up at night? When you think about this economy?
Later on the show someone said Biden won't gloat or do a victory lap after winning the Debt Ceiling crisis created by the GOP. Sure, that's an appropriate response, if you are A Responsible Adult like Biden.
BUT I want to CELEBRATE THE FEELING of defeating them. BIDEN got them to stop! Hurray!
Let's not just move on to the next crisis!
As I said, it would be best if people on the right realized they are wrong and changed. But what if they don't? What do we do with the ones who know what they are doing is wrong and they keep hurting us? We need to figure out the ways that they get it. Punishments come in many forms. Personally, I don't want them to profit, we know they care about money above almost all else.
But money is only one reason they keep coming. They like to hurt others. They use the phrase, "Own the libs" and "Make liberals cry" because that is SATISFYING to them. I'm all about making Fascism less profitable, but it's not the only thing. I don't know what the pathology is that drives them, but we know that autocrats use that emotion to consolidate their power.
Right now Trump is psychologically exhausting us. He uses many methods to stay in the media, but also uses lawfare (as in WARFARE) to get us to quit fighting. Everything is always delayed. No victory feels complete. He turns financial judgements against him into fundraising opportunities. He talks like he never really loses. Our thirst for justice is not being slaked. I didn't realize it, but that's an intentional strategy of autocrats, Trump & his supporters. NYU prof Ruth Ben-Ghiat talked about this to Ali Velshi.
Right now I see the fight against RW media, Fascists & their promoters requires having a plan to show, and then stop, their use of threats of violence to get what they want. This fight involves how we define threats of violence and the actions we can take when we see them happening. People can and do pay a financial price for defaming others. People CAN and DO go to prison for threatening violence.
It has now been established people go to prison for planning and implementing an insurrection.
The Department of Justice has been sending the "Boots" to prison. Elmer Stewart Rhodes just got 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy. Here he is with his prison issued orange eyepatch.
Now it's time to send the "Suits" to prison. When we do we'll tell the stories of our victories. And we'll celebrate. Again and again and again.
Cross posted to Spocko's Brain
