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Socrates said this: “The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”

The president's cabinet members present us with classic examples of total pretending without being. Every single one of them. Fill in your own observations here.

. Hegseth the tougher-than-anyone non-warrior.

. Bondi the slavish illegal-ridden lawyer.

. Linda the pugnacious anti-teacher.

. Kash the clueless

. Howard the procuror

. Vance the advancer

. Rubio the no-turning-back Rubiconian

. Tulsi the turncoat

. Burgum the nature destroyer

. Kennedy the kinky

. Zeldin the poisoner

. Wright the de-energizer

. Lori the laborious loser

If you had any faint hope at all that these swamp- making cabinet members would convene to boot out their big mouthy boss, keep dreaming. They pretend to be somehow more powerful, more savvy, more Right than right, more knowledgeable even ahead of time before something happens then the rest of us poor peons. If you want to go psychological you can call it the Dunning-Kruger effect, people acting smarter than they are without knowing how unsmart they are. They can barely play checkers, let alone chess.

For instance foreign policy is at least a three layer chess game the Republicants are showing us they are incapable of learning, particularly from the viewpoint of a bulldog in heat and a drunken one at that. We are being handed a cheap TV version of how to play World games starring a crappy script and whatever passes for dialogue. This does not foreign policy make. Somehow you didn't know that the Iranians would shoot back? Really?

Here's another sample taken from Imprimis, a 55 yr publication of Hillsdale College (catch the punchy competitive word/phrases as if there were no other language or way to conduct foreign policy except by bullying, competing and killing): “Diplomacy is an instrument of strategy that great powers use to survive and gain an advantage in competition with other powerful states. Excellence in diplomacy is a vital prerequisite to the success and endurance of great powers. Diplomatic skills atrophied in the United States after the end of the Cold war, as we came to rely on Military technology and economic sanctions as the main tools of our foreign policy. But now we are entering a dangerous age in which great powers are competing for the things they have competed over from the beginning of time. Territory, resources, influence, and prestige.”

So, no wonder the first thing they did in was USAID, which was the opposite of all these things and was successful as all get out as far as it could go until the Righteous Capitalists decided that feeding women and children was a bad idea if you really should be conquering them anyway. (Why?) This is just a singular glimpse into the so-called minds of people who are not ready for democracy here or abroad and want to take us to an imagined Nirvana of whenever whenever.

Moving in a forward manner in a progressive direction aimed to help this world to a more peaceful place - cooperative, creative, abundant - is literally made Impossible by this halfbrained pugnacious ill-informed approach to multifaceted intricate mixes of people, governments, ideas, resources and problems.

Outlaw selfishness.

3.12, fb re the young guy who personally abolished grants of all kinds based on the language of them, and knowing absolutely nothing about what he was doing for DOGE:

The depths of ignorance apparently know no depths. Besides his incredibly stupid brainless approach, we're looking at a whole bunch of people who do not know how stupid they are. This is a major American challenge for all of us, to weed them out of any power positions at all of any kind, to encourage, support and advance first of all - basic education through high school and beyond - to turn the vast amounts of money that actually are available into the basic requirements of a working democracy. Food, housing, clothing, free Medical help, solid and secular education including civics for everyone. And bring back the Fairness Act for media, negate Citizens United, tax the billionaires proportionately, and quite a lot more. It takes US citizens to do this.

If and when the game riggers discover that the game they themselves rigged isn’t working inside a broadening rich mix of ideas, cultures and people, their lack of imagination for a better game - democracy in all its obvious and wonderful variety - serves them poorly by crippling any ability to fully take part in the cultural richness on offer to everyone. Sheltering in their self created game bunkers of self-limiting ideas and beliefs, the lie they themselves have created i.e. their self-feeding superiority beliefs, often disguised as Christian righteous anger without a hint of rational thinking (the emotional brain substituting its own vulnerability for the thinking brain's ways of reasoning - when both can work together), they fearfully grope and gripe to appeal to other lazy minds with these hyper emotions, while still in their confused state of ever deeper bunker-building. The world is bigger than that folks. They don't know where or how to stop, ask for help, rebuild better lives, enrich their understanding of possible futures apart from 'owning' everyone else's energies/bodies/lives /belongings. They're stuck in and by the privilege boundaries they’ve built and overwork to maintain, a lot by giving out persistent lying and cover-up to protect and project the lies through fear-spreading. Being caught out by even the idea of equal competition shines up those fears eventually and especially now, as we more deeply see them displayed as false personal power while misusing other powers they have often disgustingly obtained.

Because fearing and not daring beyond one's own bounds - to even imagine being equal, in a cultural shift we might and could be part of beyond what our possibly limited comfort zones allow - challenges our abilities not yet embraced as possibilities, and that takes work, work/play too, not just existing inside our tribal boundaries, within a system that separates - by old false values of belief, gender, color, tribe, and mass accumulation etc, - as if there's some kind of protective magic that feebleness of spirit requires and can't do without. Old ideas are just that. Question is are they still working for everybody in a democratic setting? When we can answer that personally with spirit, things tend to change for the better. Some folks could benefit in ways they can't imagine yet by engaging with the change of ideas that is always happening anyway. Really nothing to fear here.

"There is nothing to fear but fear itself.”

Suggesting a perhaps needed 12-step for MAGAmind Republicans? ...1st step: “We admitted we were powerless over our unending need for accumulation of money and power over others at whatever cost.”

What's your story?

breath

where to find courage? tap into absolute need the grit of it waits

breath

black, brown, red, white is me inside, who isn't? we all contain multitudes

breath

the heart, when opened flows in flood to embrace all levels everything

rest

~ from Public Citizen: A heartening accounting of what has been accomplished so far and what’s in the works:

“CONFRONTING THE AUTHORITARIAN MOMENT

This is a scary time. It helps to acknowledge that. But it is also a time when we can’t let our fears overwhelm us or lead us to withdraw, become isolated, or give up. We must combine a strategic savvy with an empowering hopefulness.

As we meet the authoritarian challenge, these are some of our guiding principles:

1. There is no single, definitive solution to defeat authoritarianism and defend democracy. We need lots of approaches.

2. Authoritarians are driven and so too must we be persistent, relentless, and resilient. We won’t win every battle, but even those we lose can serve to further inform and inspire our broader resistance.

3. Like authoritarians before them, key figures in the Trump regime are spreading fear, despair, and hopelessness with the intent to isolate, divide, and disempower pro-democracy forces. Our job must be to bring people together — figuratively and, as much as possible, literally — so that we feel our collective strength and power.

4. Our anti-authoritarian, pro-democracy movement needs as many people — and as many different kinds of people, from all sectors of society — as we can possibly get.

5. Political leadership is vital, but politicians tend to follow more than lead. It is up to us to make our political leaders stand strongly against Trump’s authoritarianism.

6. Our values and policies are not just moral, they are also good politics, supported by overwhelming majorities of Americans (even if it sometimes feels otherwise).

7. Solidarity is perhaps our most important virtue in confronting authoritarianism. That means aggressively supporting those targeted by the regime, building unified responses to authoritarian impositions, and being fully committed to caring for each other.

These understandings underpin our anti-authoritarian program, which aims to wield the considerable strengths of Public Citizen in every way we can to defend democracy.

TAKING THE TRUMP REGIME TO COURT AGAIN AND AGAIN

We are challenging a lawless regime that disregards the Constitution with a bevy of lawsuits to uphold basic American values and the rule of law. Public Citizen has unmatched expertise and skill in areas relating to constitutional and administrative law. We are responding to the moment with an aggressive litigation strategy.

To date, we have filed 22 lawsuits against the administration since Trump returned to power (with several more imminent). These lawsuits have:

. Defeated an attempt by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) to shutter the Job Corps program, which provides training and housing for low-income youth.

. Forced the administration to make payments on foreign aid grants.

. Required the administration to repost health information it had wiped from government websites.

. Forced the administration to repost an online database that reveals how federal agencies will spend federal dollars.

. Saved the National Hunger Hotline from cancellation.

. Forced the administration to remove partisan language from the “out-of-office” emails of furloughed federal employees.

. Blocked an administration effort to deny commercial driver’s licenses to certain immigrants.

. Others of our cases aim to preserve the jobs of the independent members of the Consumer Product Safety Commission; protect the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; block wrongful sharing of immigrants’ personal information between the IRS and the Department of Homeland Security; preserve the civil rights office at the Department of Homeland Security; and more.

We have many more cases in the works, and we are prepared to litigate against the just-beginning deregulatory blitz involving everything from environmental to worker safety protections.

As we look to the coming year, we anticipate filing even more lawsuits than we did in 2025.

Of course, exactly what we do will follow from the administration’s abuses, but these are some of the areas we are monitoring for more litigation, investigation, and advocacy:

Trump’s Grift

Trump’s shady business dealings in this term are even more egregious than in his first term. We are exploring litigation opportunities around a range of schemes that benefit Trump and his family financially, including a possible plan to siphon off a share of government drug purchases.

Health Care

We are adding staff to monitor the chaos at the Department of Health and Human Services under Robert F. Kennedy Jr. We anticipate even more health policy-focused litigation in the coming year. We are tracking efforts to weaken Medicare and shovel money to for-profit insurers, among other key issues.

Corporate Subsidies

The cronyism of the Trump regime and its readiness to deploy taxpayer dollars to subsidize allied corporations knows no bounds. We are monitoring a major new initiative to throw massive subsidies at coal plants, tech companies, and more.

Immigrant Rights

The regime’s rabid cruelty toward immigrants means that anti-immigrant animus is informing all kinds of governmental activity — not just involving ICE, but also at the IRS, the Department of Education, the Department of Labor, and more. We’ll build on our existing docket of cases challenging the administration’s illegal and unconstitutional actions targeting immigrants.

Open Government

We expect to file a significant number of lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act, forcing the disclosure of information that the regime is trying — illegally — to keep secret.

In the almost two dozen cases we have filed so far, we have a strong record of success at the district court level and a more mixed record on appeal. We know we are going to lose cases we should win, and we know it would not be enough even if we won every case.

At the same time, we know these cases make a difference. We are scoring substantive wins that mitigate the authoritarian overreach perpetrated by the administration, protecting rights, blocking deregulation, overcoming censorship, and preserving agencies.

Along with the substantive wins, these lawsuits are inspiring hope — hope that authoritarianism can be stopped, that fighting makes a difference, that something can be done. In this way, our litigation is about more than the cases themselves. It is about overcoming fear, isolation, and hopelessness — so that people connect and mobilize and build the power we need to defeat Trump and Trumpism.

MOBILIZING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE

Some 7 million people took part in over 2,700 “No Kings” rallies in October. Millions and millions more were there in spirit and participating remotely by watching coverage on television or online. It was, remarkably, the largest single day of protest in American history.

Public Citizen played a central role in making it happen, as one of the core “No Kings” organizing groups. We did everything from identify and assist local protest leaders to recruit co-sponsoring organizations (nearly 300!). We helped develop the protest themes, drive turnout, manage logistics, and speak to the national media.

This was just one of more than a dozen national days of action we have helped lead, plan, and coordinate — including the two previous major nationwide mobilizations against Trump’s authoritarianism, “Hands Off” (in April) and the initial “No Kings” (in June).

We provided the organizational backbone for the July 17 “Good Trouble Lives On” actions on the anniversary of Rep. John Lewis’s death. More than 100,000 people participated in 1,600 events across the nation. We played similar roles for worker-led Labor Day actions, nationwide protests against Texas’s extreme gerrymandering, snap events around the country to support the demand for health care and an end to illegal impoundments in the government shutdown fight, and more.

In parallel, we are carrying out other organizing activities. These include a “Disappeared in America” campaign around people kidnapped by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, state-based efforts to win policies pushing back against Trump’s authoritarianism, and the mobilization of health workers.

As we look toward the coming year, we are coordinating with allies on nascent plans for new mobilizations that will demonstrate the growing power, energy, and reach of the anti-authoritarian movement.

We are also organizing to energize and mobilize diverse sectors of society in the fight against authoritarianism through all kinds of creative approaches. We have invested in a new campus organizing effort, with the objectives of massively increasing visible youth opposition to the Trump regime and of pressing universities not to capitulate to Trump’s authoritarian demands. We are coordinating with faith leaders, attorneys, veterans, farmers, and more to display their communities’ opposition to Trump.

Does all this organizing and protesting matter? You bet it does.

We know that organization and mobilization are crucial to building and expressing opposition to authoritarianism; to creating a sense of empowerment, hope, and solidarity; to pressing elected officials and civil society leaders to stand stronger against authoritarian encroachments.

With “No Kings” and other actions, the American people are showing that resistance to the Trump regime is coming from every corner of this great country. We are demonstrating our commitment to nonviolence, our patriotism, our anger at the needless harm Trump is inflicting on the nation, our rejection of his dictatorial ambitions, and — not least — our sense of humor.

The Trump regime wants to intimidate opponents and chill dissent. They want people to be scared and isolated. With “No Kings” and other actions, we join together to feel, and feed, our power — in overwhelming numbers.

Politicians pay attention. The nationwide demonstrations increasingly stiffen their spines to resist Trump. Even the politicians who kiss up to Trump are starting to have doubts, because they know the massive turnout and overwhelming energy demonstrates the growing rejection among the American people of Trump and the MAGA agenda.

Ultimately, mass mobilizations remind us of the power of solidarity and love. We have great challenges ahead to defeat Trump’s authoritarianism. But — animated by the spirit and energy of “No Kings” — we will prevail.

BUILDING MASSIVE NATIONWIDE COALITIONS

One of Public Citizen’s strengths is as a convening organization — we help bring together and spearhead literally dozens of coalitions, with the understanding that we build power when we join together. This has never been more important than it is right now.

We are one of the co-founders of the Not Above the Law coalition with 150-plus organizations. And we co-founded and house staff for the Declaration for American Democracy (DFAD) coalition, which comprises over 260 organizations. The Not Above the Law coalition brings together not only advocacy organizations and grassroots activists, but policy experts, legal minds, faith organizations, and others from across the political landscape to lead the charge against authoritarianism. DFAD is helping lead efforts against Trump’s schemes to subvert elections and is one of the key groups laying plans to win transformative democracy legislation.

We have helped to bring groups together to stand in solidarity against the Trump regime’s efforts to attack nonprofits that oppose authoritarianism. Under the guise of attacking “domestic terrorism” and diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), the White House has issued presidential proclamations signaling plans to strip away tax-exempt status, cancel government grants, and even criminally prosecute organizations opposing it. In response, with other leading organizations, we created a solidarity statement that over 3,700 discrete organizations joined — demonstrating that nonprofit groups will stand together against threats from the regime. It stands in notable contrast — unfortunately — to the responses from some law firms, universities, and others.

Other examples of our coalition work include wide-ranging efforts to educate and organize allies around deregulatory plans of the administration; to coordinate among multiple tables opposing the tax and budget reconciliation bill; and to challenge an administration proposal to enable churches to participate directly in electoral politics.

As we move into the next year, and Trump’s authoritarianism intensifies, our coalitions will be more important than ever. We will invest in and strengthen these diverse coalitional efforts across and connecting multiple sectors. At a time when no organization alone can hope to do enough and when isolation equals vulnerability, these permanent and ad hoc coalitions and networks build civil society power and enable coordination and solidarity.

EXPOSING AND CONFRONTING CORRUPTION

Impeccable investigative research is a Public Citizen calling card. And there has never been more to investigate than there is now. Our research team is laser focused on administration conflicts of interest and corruption, as well as the soft treatment given to corporate wrongdoers. Our intent is to pierce Trump’s populist facade.

We’ve published cutting-edge investigative reports showing (just to list a few examples):

An unprecedented pullback of regulatory and criminal enforcement against Big Business. This includes more than 140 open investigations closed or suspended; the termination of enforcement at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau; the announcement that anti-corruption laws will simply not be enforced; what may be the first-ever corporate pardon; and more.

More than 60 oil and gas executives, lobbyists, and lawyers with high official government positions are driving the administration’s energy policymaking.

The far-reaching conflicts of interest of Attorney General Pam Bondi — who worked previously at a lobby firm on behalf of gambling, private prison, technology, and other corporate interests — with key issues before the Department of Justice she now runs.

The quackery and conflicted business interests of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who now leads the Department of Health and Human Services, and other key health officials in the Trump administration.

The corporate giveaways in Trump’s tax and budget reconciliation bill, including major handouts to dirty energy companies and Pentagon contractors.

Many of the agencies slashed and burned by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) had been taking actions to hold assorted companies owned by Musk accountable for violations of the law.

In November, we released a blockbuster report on the corporate and mega-wealthy “donors” to Trump’s ballroom bonanza. That report showed, among other things, that the 24 known corporate sponsors of the ballroom received a combined $279 billion in federal contracts in the previous five years. This was a front-page story in The Washington Post and reverberated nationwide.

The importance of these investigative efforts is that they illustrate the lie of the Trump administration (and authoritarians generally). Trump is not fighting for everyday Americans. He is advancing an agenda of cronyism and corruption, in service of himself and his super-rich donors.

AN AGENDA FOR EVERYDAY AMERICANS

Alongside our efforts to counter Trump’s authoritarianism, corruption, and cronyism, Public Citizen is zooming forward with our traditional, pre-Trump campaigns on issues like:

Making medicines more affordable.

Protecting workers from excessive heat and other dangerous conditions.

Challenging oil and gas exports that are supercharging corporate profits but skyrocketing consumers’ utility rates.

Securing protections against creepy artificial intelligence technologies that put teens at risk.

Advocating to make billionaires and Big Business pay their fair share of taxes.

Ensuring that people injured by corporations can have their day in court.

Keeping unsafe drugs off the market.

Breaking up monopolistic corporations.

Winning Medicare for All so that no American has to live without health coverage.

And much, much more.

We have detailed work plans in each one of these areas and dozens more.

Part of Trump’s appeal has been his claim that he understands people’s economic pain and sense of disempowerment. His remedies are a fraud, but he is tapping into a legitimate sense that the system is rigged against everyday Americans. We need to provide a real and heartfelt agenda — policies, tone, and messaging — that recognizes the pain and offers real solutions.

IN CONCLUSION

This is a moment with no parallel in American history. Not only are the stakes as high as they could possibly be, but there is also no proven script to follow. We hope this note helps you get a sense of our plans and our ongoing work, but of course we can only do so much in a single (very long) email.

Please know that our team is working relentlessly across more projects, on more issues, and in more coalitions than we can recount here. We face this moment humbly but also with a sense of gravity and recognition that Public Citizen — that’s the two of us, our staff, and some 1.5 million fellow Americans from all walks of life and every corner of this country — can make, and is making, a real difference.

What you and Public Citizen are doing together matters. What hundreds of other organizations, big and small, are doing matters. What millions upon millions of our fellow Americans are doing matters. We believe that to our core. We take solace in that. And we draw inspiration from that. We hope you do, too.

If you can, please donate today to support Public Citizen’s work standing up to the Trump regime.

Anything you can chip in — $5 or $25, $50 or $100, $500 or even more — will help at such a critical moment.

CONTRIBUTE NOW

Or join our popular Monthly Giving program (if you haven’t already) to help make sure we have the ongoing financial resources to fight Trump day after day after day.

If you’ve donated to Public Citizen already, thank you. If a donation is not right, we understand. Either way, thank you for being part of Public Citizen.”

For progress,

- Lisa Gilbert & Robert Weissman, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen

Public Citizen | 1600 20th Street NW | Washington DC 20009 | Unsubscribe

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Why does this ever growing mindful organ have to do its job? Because that's what it's made for and I choose to explore with it, to understand with it, and yes to feel with it.

I choose it because I am human and have grown from the state of walking upright into caves into tribes into all those other forms of living that are supposed to make us more human and that actually can if we so choose. If we do not choose not even the underground caves of fully supplied plumbing and underground food for the so-called wealthy will develop humanness, so then what are we good for as these two legged mammals?

I bring my own particular set - of purpose, vision, discovery, longing and need to the table of learning with its immensely rich ingredients for feeding my human mind, my speech, my emotions, my taking part in energies that call to me - my own growth. Or what am I here for?

From whatever ground I have stood on in my varied manners of living working existing into these - here and now - moments I bring myself into the present necessity of healing and remaking a very twisted and confused world seemingly eating its own tail. The world that each of us lives in and has a part in. What part you might be thinking.

There is ground somewhere for all of us even on the high seas which would not exist without the ground. You could say that it is always waiting for us to feel that energy of the soil, fields, mountains with all its reasonable demands on our cooperation as the big sphere of life that sustains even our most ignorant actions to a point. We are at that point. Now. The call is always out there. And now it is a fucking horn blast.

We are turning our complaining even whining, constantly naming naming naming energies into doing doing. Doing. So many ways to do, beginning at home and within. Contributing as we can and must. We must stop boring God. Who helps us who helps ourselves.

I'm sitting here with my bag of old injuries against a far infrared heating pad at 90 years old slathered with lidocaine boosted by acetaminophen and an ashwaganda gummy, listening to guitar music and writing for me and to post. That's what I can do today beyond my selfcare needs of this particular day. Tomorrow I will go be with my friends to light the first candles of the season and be part of the joy and friendship. Celebrating the goodness of the season, not its faults, a sort of daring for the soul's sake to satisfy the quality of the time. May you also be good with yourself! This season of changes invites our own if we so need them. Blessings.

waking time, giving over to

my body wisdom

lying quietly

giving spacetime overdue

for healing my Self

tsunamis of shock

this inner body rebounds

flesh memories talk

this self listener

rebooting old programs of

social confusion

slow gentle movement

body time remakes moments

healing with each breath

urgencies hammer

hold truth hostage until and

when we honor them

virtuosity

becomes performative as

truth becomes scary

image reality

serves nothing actually

real is as real does

living long enough

for hindsight to come into

my present focus

copyright 2025 robin birdfeather

6 years into my Myotherapy practice:

“Pain and the physical body- a way of being present in our embodiment. Presence of our souls in our bodies can be proven a number of ways, pleasure is another one. We feel and experience much through and with our five senses. The stress of pain and the pain of stress are so with us today I believe, so that the message of being present and feeling can in this way break through the increasing estrangements introduced to us and forced on us and totally supportive of patriarchy and the ceaseless demands of the industrial and technological revolutions. ‘I hurt therefore I am’. A sharp and insistent message to us that we have crossed a tolerable line between testing limits and resting the bodymind. This is especially so for women who seem to have the most to gain by expanding into new possibilities but who are saddled with the old realities and or with the job of being change agents for the world and therefore becoming stress points unto themselves.

Our very souls become personal testimonies to how and how well we both endure and participate with what needs to change and improve all our lives.

While many of us are breaking out and breaking through to create and experience what and who we can be, and the possibilities are endless, we have yet to know it collectively and it comes only at a very high price, often representing/being the end result of a state of collapse after too much stress. This is not ease. Until the world's work and its rewards are more justly distributed across gender, class, race, age,.... we will not understand ease as an integral weave of everyday life. This seems a hard thing to contemplate if you are not rich, white and male.

And yet we must begin to demand ease or we will blow up with tension. The grossly greedy state of economic structural dynamics at this place in time puts us in jeopardy for our physical and mental and emotional health. The present burdens on Healthcare Services make very clear that these economic and related systems work for nobody, including their supposed masters, unless one is so very closed up as to assume/believe in a completely closed system excluding other humans who actually supply you with life and living needs endlessly.

I speak from the viewpoint of a person attempting to recover health sanity in the midst of beginning a self-employment career in my 50s. I work everyday with victims of the multitudinous tensions created by and indigenous to the interrelated dynamics of a greedy out of control world still grossly fueled by patriarchal capitalistic ambitions. The system has and does demand that we buy into it and it says it will reward us. Reward us with goods and status. Goods and status are not synonymous with health. The system we are supporting is not healthy.

This can only be changed across the lines individually and collectively. We are social beings and the original requirements of this system were for individuals to be in lockstep and give up our individual insights and uniqueness, our democratic creativity. When we demanded freedoms, the system accommodated with expanding itself to soak up and reflect the most superficial aspects of those freedoms. It said we could buy our freedom by buying more of the system. We then were promised individual power via the ability to satisfy personal greed by buying, especially on credit. The system thrives on this new superficial definition of individuality- the selfish generation.

The toll of this on human psyches, body, mind and feeling is the new plague of tension related illnesses - the tension plague. While surviving the results of this individually are very important, at some point we must deal across the lines and across the world. We must restructure our lives from the foundations up. It is hard to take this on, to transit our nonworking habits of eating, sleeping, relating, working, even playing. But that is where foundation building begins.

To feel what we are feeling- pain, pleasure- and believe it, is a beginning. To verify our reality is a wonderful exercise in the holy activity of self-awareness and realization. To simply stop denying what is, what feels, is a difficult and magic step which embodies its own healing process. No substantive change can occur without it. To embrace the present and all its presence/presents and difficulties is to begin Self-Architecture 101-building the self. Archetype of yourself. It is why we are here.

The building codes are love, love and love. Love our created self, our oneself, love creating other selves, love the world and its own creations - nature, the nature of us, in us. They are opposed by those classic seven deadly hateful sins* which are indeed by, for and of, death, living death. They represent a range of possibility just as love does. They are to be acknowledged for their power and possibility. But if one is to heal, they are useless except as fuel to move on to health. Health both represents and is a condition of balance, dynamic balance between and among all the elements of being human and what that means. It can include the acknowledgment of the seven deadly sins, even with some honor, and probably must include that. But we are not required to do actual obeisance to them, much less build a system of living around them. Sloth, greed, gluttony, etc etc etc are only possibilities, not deterministic goals of a progressive society.

It is a question whether capitalism at its very core is antithetical to a healthy system of living in dynamic balance to human need and aspirations and Pursuits of Happiness. Perhaps it is at the moment the questionable fuel for achieving escape velocity, because of its base in industrial technology, to a post-industrial world. Perhaps it will change on this journey so fundamentally as to deserve a museum by which we can remember it, and joyfully mourn its useless excesses; have a National Capitalism Day to commemorate our previous immersion in its myths.

So what is a body mind to do now, in the midst of the worst stress, tension and epidemic fallout of this blind greedy human-devouring system so insidious in its demands for our working living souls?

Where are you on this path? Have you recognized yourself? Do you feel your inherent intrinsic value? Are you in pain - physical, emotional, spiritual? What does pleasure mean to you? Is it based in escaping, embracing? Do you blame yourself for everything that happens to you? Are you buying into the addictive society we have all created or allowed? Do you believe love is possible? What does love mean to you? Can and do you love yourself, the me? Do you believe people can really love each other? Do you believe you can exchange love with another and others? Do you believe your body health is out of, or in, your control? What beliefs do you live by which can impact on your health?”

Wow, 36 years ago. The pattern is undeniable and it looks like it can't be repeated for the sake of us and children, future folks.

*The Seven Deadly Sins,

Pride (Latin: superbia): An excessive love of oneself, considering oneself to be superior or "above" others.

Greed (Latin: avaritia): An inordinate and selfish desire for material possessions or earthly goods.

Envy (Latin: invidia): A sadness or resentment at the prosperity, success, virtues, or talents of others, often coupled with a desire to have them for oneself.

Wrath (Latin: ira): An excessive or improper desire for revenge, or an uncontrolled anger that can lead to hatred and violence.

Lust (Latin: luxuria): A disordered or excessive desire for sexual pleasure.

Gluttony (Latin: gula): A disordered or excessive love of eating and drinking, not limited to simply eating too much but also an overindulgence in the pleasure of food and drink.

Sloth (Latin: acedia): A form of spiritual laziness or weariness that leads to a neglect of duties, a lack of effort in the face of necessary tasks, or a genera

l apathy towards spiritual goods.

Our humanity within ourselves and for each other is growing exponentially day by day, and now fear is just one more piece of energy to use to engage our other energies, a kind of motivator you may not have known you could use this way. It is not something to be trapped in unless that's your favorite place to be. We can literally encourage, engage, enter upon a whole new field of possibility within ourselves and for each other. Kind of like parenting yourself, you might say. Ask yourself good questions like ‘How is this __?__ affecting me?’ ‘How do I feel?’ and work with whatever answers come through, followed by whatever questions are necessary in an ongoing way that don't stifle you, that span and draw on your feelings of inner strength that you can actually discover, that might deeply surprise you in the act of believing your own feelings. Strength is there that you own and cannot be denied by anyone else because you are you. And yes it's good to reach out for suggestions and for support. That's what real friends and communities are all about.

These personal ways of dealing personally for your own good and the good of others are an actual affront to the 40 Years of Republican Scheming of by and for the Selfish, those selfish who use semi-democratic means for undemocratic person purposes, a basic fault line that our democracy so far has been too lenient with. One of our great challenges from these schemers is to bring our common senses of right and wrong into play, regardless of one's spiritual preferences and maybe because of them.

Fear can be a great motivator. Think of our president FDR, who, some of you might not know, had crippling polio for his entire presidency and before.You think that's not fearful? His forward thinking, actions and divisions actually created things like Social Security and a host of other public good works that we have enjoyed ever since. He turned his own energies into usable actions. For myself, having dealt with cancer proactively and beyond the obvious inherent fear, I've found that the mental attitude involved in transferring one energy into a better one is immensely powerful, more so by turning that energy into positive action that helps you first, along with others down the line. Like taking better of your own self, your food choices, what media actually helps you and doesn't lie to your ego. And when we do that together, especially over time and included in our daily lives somehow, we really cannot be stopped.

The scare tactics, the absolute arrogance, the assumed superiority, the mental stupidity of those imposing their own will onto everyone else without their say and for their own selfish ends, is so preposterously unintelligent that it is absolutely not sustainable, deeply unfair, deeply wrong, and will not stand long at all in our democracy.

You've got to know that, take that in. Let its truth rest in your being. That is a reality that has proven true over millennia. We in this fast-paced time have easily forgotten how the rhythms of history actually work. (see HCR on YouTube, Facebook, Substack for near daily practical inspiration). We ourselves are now creating a new story.

Remember that vengeance, backlash, rampant destruction are no more sustainable than dumping plastic in the ocean. Pollution everywhere. Pollution of ideas, of the body politic, of decency, that must be cleaned up for all of us to live more safely and cleanly and richly in a very different way from what is presented as ‘wealth’. Defining wealth by the accumulation of money that is way beyond need, personally, for one's own upkeep is a gross misrepresentation of happiness at the expense of everybody else. These folks are mentally sick, money sick, crazy sick, mentally unstable and certainly publicly menacing, way outside of human need to the point of completely ridiculous. I'm not saying anything new here, just more recognizable.

All our positive actions, personally and together, are beginning to make the changes, however small or large, most of us so desperately have been hoping and looking for, and now are publicly responsible for as citizens of this country, including all its workers no matter where we are from, because we have decided to be part of expanding human health growth possibility and justice.

May we grasp, respect, honor, use and share all our possibilities for the actual virtues that a democracy can encompass and has so far done pretty well with!

Great days are ahead of us as we apply our best selves to creating them. Blessings everywhere!

when you're shifting paradigms

be an explorer

what did not happen

could not be, give it up

for possibility

there is no wonder

more divine, more complex,

than human life itself

reaching for Spirit

goods and status take proper

perspective on life

~ Public Citizen 4.25.25

Dept.Of Humans/Civic Actions Branch, Office of Common Sense Division

From my friend Nina Carson ... To our local newspaper. This can easily be a template for your use too - easy direct language and demand for fuller reporting, like a 'daily *Trump watch* column' :

Definitely feel free to pass it on anywhere and everywhere. About time these corp news people get off their Profit-Before-News horse.

https://www.facebook.com/1587712148/posts/10231311799170059/?mibextid=Nif5oz

You know what to do - - - - - - -

CBG doesn't hurt either, figuring along with all these ideas and beliefs and habits into some kind of coherence. Coherence is as coherence does, I'm finding. It's more than a gut only feeling though in recognition of what we're finding out about the gut, who knows?

Noticing, the act of taking notice, taking note of any and everything has been with me all my life. And I am not alone in this, at all. It is in fact a human instinct coming very much out of our animal cells. Including birds of course. Yes birds evolved from dinosaurs after the big stuff hit the Earth back there in whatever era and killed the dinosaurs as they were, which had gotten way too big anyway, though to mention quickly I do love whales but they're in the ocean not the land. Anybody taking notice of parallels here.??

While my early schooling included really great teachers especially English teachers and history/civics teachers, It has remained with me because I have used it. They lured and beckoned and encouraged me into good long-time habits of mind and noticing, along with a bigger awareness of everything around me. And that was in the late 40s and into the '50s - Yes the absolutely terrifying uprooting mean times that senator McCarthy brought us, along with all the capitalists who were afraid of losing influence; largely male to male battles. Why on earth are people, males and females, so damn scared of educating themselves, and I'm even talking about educated ones too. Mao Tse Tung shipped all those upper experts out to the fields to work, back there during their cultural revolution, and I don't know how much that worked but it was pretty brutal. Maybe we could start replacing habits with have-its. Self-ownership is not a bitch, self-ownership is an absolute pleasure.

Looks like we have to de-brutalize ourselves over a rather intense period to come, one hopes in intensely beautiful ways. All those deep courageous meaningful creative kind ways that a mixed world population can bring back to the larger world. Namaste.

Bad idea of the week :-) :-) :-) :-) :

Corporate Capitalism. There's nothing much human about it. Don't berate this one, just think about it…. I am moving on as always.

• In 2008, Wall Street’s reckless greed set off a worldwide financial crisis.

• So Congress — in accordance with its constitutional duty to regulate commerce — established a new federal agency to protect the American people, and our economy, from Big Banks and other giant financial institutions.

• Public Citizen played a major role in the creation of the new agency, known as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB).

• Since its creation in 2011, the CFPB has recovered billions for everyday Americans and helped create a fairer, more transparent financial marketplace.

• Donald Trump has openly declared his intent to “totally eliminate” the CFPB.

• Dismantling the CFPB violates the law and is in defiance of the Constitution’s separation of powers.

• The regime’s actions are causing mass confusion and imposing significant and irreparable harm on consumers all across the country.

Our lawsuit seeks to stop the Trump regime’s illegal dismantling of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

Public Citizen — with co-counsel at Gupta Wessler LLP and the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU) — is representing the NTEU, CFPB Employee Association, NAACP, National Consumer Law Center, Pastor Eva Steege, and Virginia Poverty Law Center in this case.

We also filed a motion for a temporary restraining order, asking the court to stop the Trump regime from proceeding with its plan while our case goes forward.

Again, this is the seventh lawsuit Public Citizen has filed over unlawful actions by the Trump regime — we’ve been emailing you updates about some of the others — and there are more to come.

If you can, please donate today to support Public Citizen’s work standing up to the Trump regime.

Anything you can chip in — $5 or $25, $50 or $100, $500 or even more — will help at such a critical moment.

CONTRIBUTE NOW
Or join our popular Monthly Giving program (if you haven’t already) to help make sure we have the ongoing financial resources to fight Trump day after day after day.

If you’ve donated to Public Citizen already, thank you. If a donation is not right, we get it. Either way, we wanted to keep you updated on how we’re challenging the Trump regime.

Thank you for being part of this shared project called Public Citizen.

For progress,

- Robert Weissman & Lisa Gilbert, Co-Presidents of Public Citizen

Public Citizen | 1600 20th Street NW | Washington DC 20009 | Unsubscribe

president@citizen.org

In 2006, a high school English teacher asked students to write a famous author

and ask his advice. Kurt Vonnegut was the only one to respond.

“Dear Xavier High School, Ms. Lockwood and Mssrs Perin, McFeely, Batten,

Maurer and Conguista:”

“I thank you for your friendly letters. You sure know how to cheer up a really old

geezer (84) in his sunset years. I don’t make public appearances anymore because I

now resemble nothing so much as an iguana.”

“What I had to say to you moreover, would not take long, to wit:”

“Practice any art, music, singing, dancing, acting, drawing, painting, sculpting,

poetry, fiction, essays, reportage, no matter how well or badly, not to get money and

fame, but to experience becoming, to find out what’s inside of you, to make your soul

grow.”

“Seriously! I mean starting right now, do art and do it for the rest of your lives.

Draw a funny or nice picture of Ms. Lockwood, and give it to her. Dance home after

school, and sing in the shower and on and on. Make a face in your mashed

potatoes. Pretend you’re Count Dracula.”

“Here’s an assignment for tonight, and I hope Ms. Lockwood will flunk you if you

don’t do it: Write a six line poem about anything, but rhymed. No fair playing tennis

without a net. Make it as good as you possible can. But don’t tell anybody what

you’re doing. Don’t show it or recite it to anybody, not even your girlfriend or parents

or whatever, or Ms. Lockwood. OK?”

“Then tear it up into teeny-weeny pieces and discard them into widely separated

trash receptacles. You will find that you have already been gloriously rewarded for

your poem. You have experienced becoming, learned a lot more about what’s inside

you, and you have made your soul grow.”

“God bless you

Strengthen your local institutions (pick one or two) from the ground up, worry less about what you can't do, keep in touch with the general scene in your state and nationally but not to the outer bounds of nonsense, and let action, not fear, run your day week month and year.

Fear can become a bad habit, an energy drainer that you may have figured out already. Fear is being thrown at you by corporate media, by the upcoming president and his very un-American full-of-fear maganats who will continue to do so until they're dead apparently. You actually have the choice to live otherwise, something you must give yourself.

Listen to your favorite music on arising and in your day because music smooths your edges, unless it becomes not what you need. This makes you a working citizen doing what you can do and at the same time learning and maybe relearning how to take care of yourself, not just others. The very behavioral rules running this human democracy as we have continued to improve it, are still and need to be, fairness, equality, law abiding, respect,

And not to at all forget these: ‘freedom of speech, freedom of worship, freedom from want, and freedom from fear.’

Give yourself a weekly or even daily time to enjoy time, to calm your state of mind and energy. Jews tend to do this on Shabbat/Saturday which has taken us shall we say a very very long way (it's not necessarily a religious practice).

Remind yourself that television is an alternate reality, not your life unless you make it one. TV and talk radio on all the time tends to rob you of your own considerate thoughts. Music can enhance them.

If you're not already in this process you might want to start rearranging your idea of day-to-day living as a rebirth of possibilities for you and the country. Seems it's time to keep making democracy (liberty, equality, justice - in practice) a better and better reality as the challenge has been plastered in our faces and lives. Let's take it up.

You never know who else you might be helping along the way. If you have children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, this may already be obvious to you. You can always adopt a parenthood frame of mind and actions, especially when the new parents at the so-called top don't have a clue; they are actually abusive. This is what working from the ground up actually means - planting new and better foundations at the local level.

The term Working Democracy is once again moving our lives in new directions. Each one of us is part of that. If you want to help and support others you could pass this on too.

Helpful quotes - our actions make them real:

. “When one part of the democratic system falters, the others can be used as tools to repair and strengthen it, empowering people to constantly, peacefully strive for a better future.”

. “These individual freedoms include freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion and the right to a fair trial.”

<www.mccaininstitute.org>, and Wikipedia.

Public Citizen | 1600 20th Street NW | Washington DC 20009 | Unsubscribe

Making strong coffee

Putting on work jeans and a denim shirt

Amusing socks because I need a chuckle

Sturdy shoes to hold my balance

I’m going to go outside

Might pick up a shovel or pruning shears

Listen for birds

Watch for lizards 

Maybe read

Maybe dream

Maybe watch clouds float to be reminded that the world is still turning and in flux.

I’ve read that how you respond is how you make things what they are as well as who you are. Or something like that.

Some yell some cry some laugh some cower some fight

I’m a little different, of course, Buttoning jeans and shirts and tying shoes. Gaining balance. Wielding tools. All battles I’ve fought and won. I reminisce. These battles may seem minor ones to some. How minor or major a battle maybe is known by only by the individual fighter. What is one for one is not for others. You do what you can. The trick is not in how much or far but how steadily you move forward. Keep moving forward. Don’t stop

- old woman with a few battle scars and only a heart, memories and denim for armor ~ Robin Milner ©️2024

Repubs …. a negative list:

. Toxic semi-civilized .Emotional weaklings and infants .Lazy-brained fact-avoiders .Late stage less-law and lawless disruptors .Profiteers of money, energy and resources in general .Uncreatives .Fearful of everything .Blamers .Bad idea mongers .Selfish .Irresponsibles .Moral Cowards… more?

Will they ever grow up? Don't count on it. Wonder if any of them could do a deep self-inventory and become actual viable party members of dependable post-corporate-capitalists … talking to Kinziger, Cheney et al for guidance, that is if they will actually talk to you anymore. Which they just might.

Any suggestions for a positive list? What can they stand up for that actually aligns with our Constitution and its Bill of Rights - not some quixotic self-serving version? When they start to actually freely substantially agree with each other on essentials - and act, justly and coherently, with their words and promises matching - in agreement with our agreed on laws and our Constitution - then I for one will begin to pay better attention when it's worth it to do so. Then the working arrangements of a two-party system might ‘be’ (not just ‘look like’ because images without substance are cheap) serviceable and fair to all Americans to include race, class, sex, party, age, country of origin and even uber-capitalist status.

How about grow-up camps? How about 12 step programs? Step One: “We admitted we were powerless over our greed for unending accumulation of money and power at whatever cost.” How about an ‘adopt a Republican’ in your neighborhood program? And only if they sign a pledge to do the work required. Could charge them fee for this and make back some of the money they squander at public expense. Warning: that could be quite a while. How about randomly generated citizenship tests that have to be passed before even signing up for any civic position whether voted on or not? And every candidate for everything or any appointed public office has to submit a checkable honest resume of what they have actually done, and agree not to serve their own private interests. We can make that a national process for national posts. The states and local entities? Well let's make it fashionable and desirable, shall we?

I kind of want to include IQ tests but don't know if that's a reliable way of checking out everyone. 110 could be a baseline. More ideas?

But seriously… only grownups need apply for any of these public positions. Got to figure this stuff out. Make public service meaningful again, with educated experienced people, high school grads and on. Looking forward to a whatever they call themselves, ‘Republican?’ platform that speaks to actual needs and visions that are humane and real, by the next presidential election.

And then.…there's the press. It looks like unsubscribing is the present way to go.