19 Comments
Nov 6Liked by Jared Yates Sexton

Thank you, Jared. Your framing, honesty, and compassion are right on.✊🏻❤️

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Nov 6Liked by Jared Yates Sexton

You are correct. We fell for the comfortable fantasy. The path forward will not be easy, but we have no choice.

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I loved your reference to reaching out to help those under direct attack as a way of helping ourselves to heal. I've learned that helping others is a key to recovery in treating addiction.

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No resting. We are gadflies. We need to unite. To get organized to create a force. This result actually could be what saves humanity. We weren't going to touch what would send us to apocalypse, the control of the oligarchy, under Harris. Our desperation now could get us activated. Maybe this way: "Let's do something already to turn the world around...How about the Beloved Community?” https://suzannetaylor.substack.com/p/lets-do-something-already-to-turn. Jared -- I don't think you got on my mailing list. You can do it from this post. All activists, do the same!!!

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Nov 6Liked by Jared Yates Sexton

very good post - we cannot ignore politics and agree - even if join fascists, it will eventually devour one. and what a miserable way to live. we must stand up for communities under attack - i really fear for people who are part of LGBTQ+ community.

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Nov 7Liked by Jared Yates Sexton

Thank you Jared. I have so much respect for you. And, I am genuinely grateful for the ways you show yourself to the world and how you stand up for people. Thank you.

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Nov 7Liked by Jared Yates Sexton

Thank you for the words of truth and hope! I subscribed today, because it's time we support people doing good work who are producing good, honest content and hosting places to rally, organize, plan, and encourage one another through these unprecedented times in America. I was heartbroken to see that more than half of this country voted for this vile man and gleefully opened the door to authoritarianism as though it were some joke or prank to "own the libs". They don't know that there is always deep pain and hurts with fascism, and it will come for them eventually. It's painful and disgusting. Still in shock, but thank you.

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Biden didn't defend our Constitution by getting Trump prosecuted right away due to some honor code we don't understand. He is not going to save us in any way now even though he can do anything he wants since he has immunity. We are on our own. My fantasies about the US are wiped out.

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You might check Sarah Kendzior's conversations on this from her substack earlier this week. I tried to not believe her reporting (for years) (years!) that the present administration was just the holding pattern while the forces of money and un-trammeled power really got their act together, but I was wrong in holding on to notions of decency and 'responsible governance'.

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Jared, I am curious as to how/why you think some states voted for abortion protections *and* for Trump.

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And how do you recommend we move forward? Seriously, I don't see a way at this point.

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I know, and it's probably a 'Guy Montag' fantasy at best, but stop feeding The Machine in every way you're able. Stop participating in the 'digital economy' wherever you can. Stop buying stuff from the oligarchies and get out from under their financial schemes. Read Wendell Berry.

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Spot on!

Addiction

Anger induces dopamine in the brain. Feels better to hate and be angry and brainwashed than treat the pain of the addiction and seek alternative sources of truth and freedom.....

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I resonated with pretty much everything about this piece, as I do with all your pieces. However, there was one line in it that didn’t make sense to me, about how the Trumpists are allying with “an international authoritarian movement that includes China, Iran, Russia, and North Korea.” Perhaps I misunderstood what you were trying to say there, but it seems to me that the American right is more aligned with the authoritarian nations of Israel, Hungary, and Russia. It is absolutely not aligned with Iran, China, and North Korea.

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We should have prioritized reversing the Citizens United decision immediately. It was January 21, 2010, that the  Supreme Court issued the ruling in Citizens United v. Federal Election. We've had 15 years to work on that. Now, billionaires have taken over our federal government.

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That one billion dollars was fundraised for Harris, that the campaign still ended up in debt, and that the results were so disastrous, only leads to one conclusion - the purpose of the Democratic Party is not to make policy or even win elections (the bare minimum) but to funnel money to a parasitic class of consultants, advertising firms and PACs.

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Jared, on the topic of mass addiction, have you ever read My name is Chellis and I'm in Recovery from Western Civilization?

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Jesus. Well said, sir. I've recently left the mainstream protestant church of ten years' attendance as it's succumbing to the same magical thinking described herein, and am considering returning to al-Anon meetings. Maybe there's still sobriety to be found there. I recommend Iain McGilchrist's "The Master and His Emissary" for his very thorough look at the manner in which in both social and biological manners in which we've collectively become vulnerable for the simple answer, the easy 'fix' and the easy manipulation of The Machine and its little dark rectangles-as-emissaries. I also suggest the quick reading in yesterday's Washington Post, an interview by Kara Voght: "Michael Fanone knows how many of you feel. He's felt it for years". Here's a nugget: "What unfolded at the Capital that day hadn't been some grand MAGA finale, but just the ****** beginning". I refuse to 'bulid bridges' to the New Order, even (or especially) given the headline in today's Quad City Times: "Biden urges acceptance". Ehm, no. Just no.

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