I thought about starting this off with FDR’s famous quote, “You have nothing to fear but fear itself”, but that would be silly. We have plenty to fear. Let’s start there.

But where? Where to start? You’ve looked outside, right? It’s terrible out there. The Trump ‘administration’ is now a full-blown ‘regime’ and the political climate has never been worse. The destruction is already incredible. It’s scary. What’ll we do?

I mean it. What’ll we do?

Well, okay, let’s think… We’re writers, right? That’s our skill. It’s also our weapon if we choose to use it that way. So what happens when our words become weapons?

When our words become weapons and we enter the battlefield we become warriors. How terrifying is that? Pretty terrifying. It means we’re exposing ourselves to an enemy just waiting to destroy us. They’ve discovered the power of words (they’re incredibly successful propagandists) and they’d rather we didn’t infringe. Not that they’re that polite about it. “Infringe” isn’t in their vocabulary. They’re tough guys. Remember that.

They’re proud bullies and they’ll step on you every chance they get. When you open yourselves up by publishing your ideas and then doing the unthinkable—cementing them with facts—they’ll be waiting for you. Intimidation is their game, and they’ve become experts at it. It’s all they have. Facts are not on their side. Their arsenals are full of lies. They won’t survive unless they keep the lies coming. They know you’re out to stop them.

They’re the predators and they see you as their prey.

But only if you let them.

I don’t feel like prey. In fact, I’m feeling pretty damned invincible right now. Call that folly, but I get off on what I write when I’m writing about politics. Every single time. I’m my own best cheerleader. I need me, the writer, to tell me, the scared American, that the two of us are doing what we need to do in order to help out.

That’s what writing in this climate does. It emboldens us. We need to do this, and the longer we do it the more emboldened we become. We need to see that other scared Americans are doing it, too. Then we can move as a unit, sharing what we know in order to protect our flanks, in order to give our warriors ammunition and encouragement.

Your words don’t have to be perfect; they just have to tell the story you need to tell. You have something to say. It may be what everyone else is saying, but these are your words. This is your story. You need to be here telling it, not just for us but for the world.

Oh, wait…the world? We’re telling the world?? That scares you, too? Don’t let it. The world needs to hear us. All of us. There can’t be too many of us all saying essentially the same thing: We choose democracy. We choose stability. We choose fairness and kindness, and we want—no, we demand our government’s reflection of that.

We choose this fight against tyranny, against fascism, against the ignorant lunacy of the present regime because it’s worth whatever it takes to put an end to it. If we can be a part of doing that, why wouldn’t we take it on? As Americans we do what we can with the tools at hand. And for us, our tools are our words.

Writers, artists, musicians—it requires all of us. We’re as necessary as any other cog in this wartime effort. We’ve joined forces before in order to vanquish enemies and we can do it again. The key word is ‘together’. If there are enough of us and if we’re loud enough, they’ll have to listen. Eventually, the forces who can stop them will have to listen.

We will not be quiet. This is who we are. This is how we speak out. This is why we’re here. I’m glad we’re in this together. If you still have fears, now is the time to talk about them. Right here, right now. This space is yours.

An example of what I’m writing these days at Constant Commoner, where it’s mainly politics, at least for the duration:

Constant Commoner

A Reminder, America: We're Nothing Like Donald Trump

Hello, fellow citizens. Like you, I’m an American finding myself living now under an ugly, dangerous regime promising to take me down, to make me buckle, to end my good life as I know it. Like you, I I never would have thought this possible, growing up in the home of the brave, in the land o…

Read more

a year ago · 125 likes · 37 comments · Ramona Grigg

And another:

Constant Commoner

What 'Hands Off' Did Best: It Brought Us Together

Saturday, April 5 was ‘Hands Off’ Day, and, as protests go, it was right up there as one of our finest. The reports of massive crowds—far exceeding expectations after so many disappointments—are coming in from all over the country. This is the news we wanted to hear. This is the outcome we wanted to see. This…

Read more

a year ago · 130 likes · 37 comments · Ramona Grigg

Constant Commoner is open and free but becoming a paying member will surely help me to keep going. If you appreciate what you see here, please consider a paid subscription. For $5/month or $50/year you can join the paying ranks (Thank you, paying ranks!) through Substack below, or you can support my work by tipping any amount at any time at Ko-Fi or at Paypal. If you prefer to remain a free subscriber there will always be room for you here. Just please tweak that little heart before you go. Oh, and restack, please. Let’s keep this neighborhood strong! I can’t thank you all enough.

Me at Constant Commoner

If you’re a writer working to save what’s left of our democracy and you’re getting a little frantic because nothing seems to be working, welcome aboard! You’re among friends. Let’s talk about the weapons we’re using.

Because we’re writers we’re using words as weapons. For some of us they’re all we’ve got, yet there are millions of words to choose from. That’s heady but damned scary. Millions of words! Which to choose, which to choose…

I write in language that’s mainly plain nowadays but there was a time when my thesaurus stayed right beside me and I looked to it for words of many syllables, thinking how smart I’d appear if only I could find that right word—even if it was a word I had to look up in a dictionary (also by my side) to make sure I was using it correctly.

That was stupid. A real timewaster, considering I wasn’t writing to impress the scholarly or the brilliant, but rather to find people who were more like me, people I was comfortable around, people who didn’t need or want big words. Not that they avoided them or didn’t understand them, but they preferred language that fit their own neighborhoods. Just folks.

I still look for the right words to describe what’s happening, or to get my point across, but because my mission today is, to my mind anyway, so important (saving the whole damn country) I want simple words that will resonate. Words that are memorable.

More often than not I feel I’ve failed, but it’s not because I haven’t found the right big words, it’s because I haven’t found the right combination. Sometimes I want my prose to read like poetry, and other times I want it to read like jackhammers—pounding, pounding, pounding away.

I want my words to fit the theme and not deviate from beginning to end. I want the beginning to be so striking the reader can’t help but want to read on. I want the ending to be so right I can hear the happy sighs from where I sit. I want everything in between to ripple along on paths so amazing it’s incomprehensible that anyone would leave.

I know! It’s what we all want. You don’t have to remind me. Entire industries have been built on just those wishes. But it all comes down to the words we choose. While I’m madly in love with words, I love my readers even more.

Which brings me back to my original notion:

You don’t need big words in order to write big thoughts. In fact, big words will often hinder your mission, which, if I read you right, is the same as mine: we’re here to save our country from certain mad destruction.

I look to the writers past and present who do it best, and every single one of them writes in a way that grabs our hearts and minds. They’re showing us there are many ways to win a battle.

They want us to feel something, and big words often get in the way.

I’ve made a short list of some of my favorites, in no particular order, off the top of my head, mainly looking at my own bookshelves. They speak to us in language that is evocative and memorable. Some of them have done it so well they’re still known and loved after a century or more.

I did this quickly. I know I’ve forgotten so many. Please add yours:

Will Rogers, John Steinbeck, Barack Obama, Maya Angelou, Molly Ivins, Edward R. Murrow, Harper Lee, Dan Rather, Mike Royko, bell hooks, Woody Guthrie, Dorothy Thompson, Eugene Robinson, Arthur Miller, Rachel Maddow, Robert Reich, Rachel Carson, Studs Terkel, Toni Morrison, Bob Herbert, Kurt Vonnegut, Anna Quindlen, Mark Twain, Jessica Mitford, Carl Sagan, Doris Kearns Goodwin, Ken Burns, E.B White, Heather Cox Richardson, James Baldwin, Russell, Baker, Barbara Kingsolver, E.L. Doctorow, Connie Schultz, William Shirer, Margaret Atwood, Joseph Heller,

We’re writers who find ourselves in a world so crazy, so upside down, we know we need to try to make a difference now. We know that how we say what we have to say is as important as what we say. We need to remember our audience: they’re people who are looking to us to witness and transcribe and go for the gut. Every word must mean something. Cull those that don’t and throw them out. The number of syllables doesn’t matter. Don’t make readers have to look up a word so uncommon even you had to waste minutes making sure it means what you think it means.

Write the way you talk. Write the way we talk. Talk to us.

My list of current writers working along with us in our effort to save our democracy. Please follow me at my other Substack publication, Constant Commoner:

Constant Commoner

Ongoing List of Helpers in the War Against Fascism

Here are some of the people we can count on to bring us news, background information, inspiration…whatever we’re going to need in the days ahead as we fight the Trump regime for the soul of our country…

Read more

a year ago · 36 likes · 19 comments · Ramona Grigg

I'm at Bluesky

I’m writing more these days on the situation our country faces as I watch what looks like a complete and inevitable takeover by a madman and his complicit civilian army. I’m concentrating on what I’m witnessing, trying to make sense of the nonsensical, of the evil at hand, of the shocking realization that those who could save us are showing us they won’t.

As a political writer, I probably read more about politics than many of you, and that may be okay with you. I wouldn’t blame you if you wanted to stay out of it. It’s hard on the head and the heart to be so immersed in so much angst, especially when there’s so little any one of us can do.

As a child during WWII, I learned early on that my duty as a citizen of my country was to help the war effort, even if it just meant saving newspapers or crushing cans or buying war stamps. If we all did our part, we could win. And we did.

I never got over it.

I’ll confess it’s harder on me than I expected. I cry a lot. I rage even more. I wake up in the middle of the night with a pain in my gut, grieving for what should have been, but never will be now.

I yell at my TV and my computer screen whenever someone lies to me or tells me I should calm down. I yell loudest when they make normal or trivial those things that are set to ruin us. Real people will suffer. Real people are already suffering. And that, we’ve known since BEFORE the election, was the plan all along.

I can’t watch Donald Trump go on what amounts to a national wrecking spree without grieving for the country that used to be. My country. But now a country so wracked with powerful propaganda and deliberate confusion millions of our citizens actually turned over our most powerful positions, the presidency, the Congress, and ultimately the Supreme Court, to an incompetent madman whose only reasons for wanting the job were to stay out of jail and to extract revenge.

And they’re not sorry.

I can’t read, as I did today, and ignore the very real fact that Ukraine is probably lost because Donald Trump is president. He talked with Vladimir Putin for ninety minutes yesterday. He wants Ukraine to make peace with another madman. I don’t yet have the words to describe what that means, because I’m still taking it personally. All of my hopes that we would be the good guys saving that desperate country, a country that did no wrong, are smashed now.

We aren’t coming to Ukraine’s rescue, which should come as no surprise to anyone who has paid attention to the past year’s election run-up. A vote for Trump was a vote for Putin. Always.

I’ll never understand why it happened.

There’s a lot I don’t understand, and every normalization of Trump’s choices, his edicts, his threats, hits me where it hurts. I’m trying not to become a basket case. For some foolish reason I think what I do here is a job worth doing, and it feels like the loneliest job in the world.

As a citizen, as a woman, as a mother, as a human being, as a writer, I’ve always seen my job as one of caretaker. But this job—trying to save an entire country—is beyond me. It’s not the first time I’ve come to that conclusion, and it’s not the first time I’ve confessed it, but it is the first time I’ve felt in my bones that this patient is not just dying, it’s being murdered.

So I can’t quit now. I can’t. All I can hope for is that more and more people—and that especially includes writers—will become witnesses, will become activists, will become citizens with enough love for their country to try and stop what amounts to attempted murder.

I marvel at, and sometimes envy, those writers who can stay away from this kind of folly—the thought that anything I write might make a mighty difference—but I can’t be them. I’ve never been them.

So this is where it stands here at Writer Everlasting, at least until there are signs that we’re gaining control over the criminals. That has to come first, and I’ll be working at it most often at Constant Commoner, my other Substack publication. I’ll be publishing here, I’m hoping at least once a week, but some of what I publish will be older pieces that didn’t get an audience yet might have relevance for you as writers.

Some of it will have relevance to what I’m witnessing as a political writer. Be forewarned.

To those of you who are still with me, still subscribing, still paying to support my efforts here, I can’t thank you enough. I never want to let you down. I started this as a place for writers who want a community, a safe place, a haven. I did it because I want that, too, but above all, I wanted a place to be honest. And I’m being honest now.

I care about you all in ways you can’t even begin to know, but there are bigger things I have to attend to now. I won’t abandon you, but I feel like the mother who puts the child most in need above the others until the crisis is over. She loves them all, but she’ll need to make them understand her priorities. They won’t always understand.

I get it.

If you’re with me on this, thank you. If you’re not, I wish you well. But here it is. I’m like a factory retooling for the war effort. It’s only temporary. I hope.

I’m looking for more subscribers to Constant Commoner and I hope you’ll join me there. I want to build a force, and I can’t do it without the numbers. I’ve also started a list of journalists and others who have signed up for this battle and are working hard to get the word out and to help us understand. It’s here:

Constant Commoner

Ongoing List of Helpers in the War Against Fascism

Here are some of the people we can count on to bring us news, background information, inspiration…whatever we’re going to need in the days ahead as we fight the Trump regime for the soul of our country. Their knowledge, their insight, their ethics, their integrity, their commitment in the face of an uphill battle…

Read more

a year ago · 26 likes · 15 comments · Ramona Grigg

At Constant Commoner

At Bluesky

In 1974, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman appeared on our television screens. Not our movie screens, on television. Because it was shown on one night only (with only one commercial break, it should be noted) it wasn’t seen by everyone who might have wanted to watch it. It was here and gone but not forgotten. But now, thanks to resources available to us on the internet, we can watch it and study it and weep over it and revel in its masterful consciousness¹

This scene alone, an unheard-of five minutes long, especially for television, lives on, thanks to the writing of Ernest J. Gaines, thanks to the exquisite artistry of Cicely Tyson, thanks to those of us who have never forgotten and have kept it going, those of us who need this as our ‘fix’ whenever we’re about to be convinced that there is nothing a single person can do to make unfairness and misery go away.

When Cicely Tyson brought Miss Jane Pittman to life.

Please, drop everything, go into a quiet space, grab a tissue, and learn…

(Cross-posted at Constant Commoner, where I’m working to help save our country these days.)

"Hard times are coming, when we’ll be wanting the voices of writers who can see alternatives to how we live now, can see through our fear-stricken society and its obsessive technologies to other ways of being, and even imagine real grounds for hope. We’ll need writers who can remember freedom – poets, visionaries – realists of a larger reality. Right now, we need writers who know the difference between production of a market commodity and the practice of an art."

--Ursula K Le Guin, National Book Awards Acceptance Speech

NOTE: I wrote a variation of this a couple of years ago and I’m repeating some of it here, not just to emphasize my own resolve, but also to encourage other creative writers to speak out when something political or controversial needs examining. It’s the writers who best serve as witnesses chronicling our times—how we got here, what it all means, and what we must do now.

I built Writer Everlasting mainly as a salon for creative writers, so it may seem strange to some of you that I seem to have abandoned the ‘creative’ part. Not at all. I’ve just shifted it. Some of the most creative pieces I’ve read lately have been political opinion pieces. So much brilliance out there, as hundreds if not thousands of smart, thoughtful writers try to make sense of the unbelievable events of this past election season.

I’m in the throes of it myself. It haunts me day and night. I’m madly trying to figure out what just happened, so when I’m not writing about that awful election, I’m reading about it. It’s all-consuming, and I’ve given in to it.

I rarely watch TV news anymore, but I can’t say the same for wandering the internet. I spend a lot of time here. Maybe too much, but the give-and-take is irresistible, and, truthfully, I need it in order not to feel alone. (Spare me the internet lectures. I’m a grown-up now.)

I’m finding comfort in following those writers who push my buttons and fill my needs—those who are speaking to me and for me. And especially those who have made resistance and opposition an art.

In these perilous days ahead, in order to get our messages out, many of us who have shifted from the creative to the political are clinging to the need to be true to who we are. There are plenty of people out there who would like nothing better than to be the one who brings us down. We’ll need to leave our fears behind and find our courage. And we’ll need to do it while staying creative.

Don’t panic now. It can be done.

Throughout our history we’ve seen and heard political views from musicians, artists, and writers who have moved in and out of their comfortable professional lives in order to advocate for what they believe in. They did it knowing it could hurt their careers, but witnessing history and seeking the truth in words or song or art comes from a natural place inside; the part that makes them who they are.

We’ve seen it from Woody Guthrie to E.B White, to Will Rogers, to John Lennon, to Maya Angelou, to Steven King, to Taylor Swift. They take stands when the times call for it. They capture and explain America in ways that draw us in. (I’ve left many out. Feel free to fill in the blanks.)

But what about the rest of us. Who are we? What do we have to offer?

As for me, I’m a political animal by choice, and that’ll never go away. I don’t just lean liberal, I consume liberalism. I live, breathe, and will die on the sword of liberalism. The kind of liberalism that transcends politics, though I’ve had to learn to live with the politics in order to get anything done.

I’m a Bambi-lover, a do-gooder, a freaking snowflake. I believe in social welfare and in social justice. I’m for strong unions, universal healthcare, education for all, and a government that rules and regulates for the good of the people.

I’m not brave—not by a long shot. I’m confused. I’m flummoxed. I’m scared to death. I’m old and my mobility is limited, but my brain still functions around 89.5% of the time.

I’m a writer who feels things deeply, yet there are times I fear unleashing the thoughts within me. Yes, I fear them. They’re painful and overwhelming and I know, given the enormity of the dangers I see before us, whatever comes will be wholly inadequate. And not always welcome.

My true heart is in working to keep my country safe. In keeping it a democracy. It’s a struggle I can’t ignore. Authoritarianism, prodded on by super-powerful oligarchs, is gaining momentum, and the dangers they threaten are real. I want to help. I want to do everything I can in my own small way, not so much because I think I can make a difference, but because I have to live with myself. I can’t turn my back on us now.

I have a voice and even if it shakes, I’m going to use it.

In my own spaces, at my two publications, Constant Commoner and Writer Everlasting, I want to keep our communities strong; I want us to stay friends. I want us to be honest, but in ways considerate of our different viewpoints.

We don’t all think the same, nor should we. Conformity is anathema to creativity, and if we’re anything here, we’re creative.

I’m struggling to get it right, and it’s obvious I’m not alone, but the angst is palpable. Our world is a scary place right now. These are not normal times. They’ll require careful thought and calls to action, and the guts to say it all out loud in ways that draw people in.

That’s where our creativity comes in. What can we say that hasn’t been said before? How do we say it in order to be seen and heard? Can there be magic in words politic?

Well, we come at it the way we come at anything else—cleverly, artfully, individually. If the times are intimidating, putting our thoughts in print shouldn’t be. We’re writers. We’ve been in control of our words before. From essayists to humorists to poets, we’ve learned to put our own slant on everything we write.

Creative political writing fits right in there. It’s first person. It’s opinion. It’s compelling. It’s YOU if you want it to be.

I'm at Bluesky

Constant Commoner

I’m a blogger who often writes political opinions of the liberal persuasion. I’m not the bravest of bloggers, but there are those times when I swallow my fear and go for it. I fully expect to hear about it but my heart tells me I need to say those things out loud.

My opinions have been formed by years of study and observation, using data collected from many sources, including the mainstream media. I’ve counted on them to give me clues, to provide me with proof that what I’m about to say is true, to steer me straight if I’ve gotten it wrong.

That’s not to say my BS meter isn’t in full-time activation. I don’t believe everything I see in print, even if it’s from those sources I’ve almost always counted on.

During the Obama years, when I began political blogging in earnest, I learned to pick and choose and read between the lines, and, if need be, to look to other sources for clarification. But through it all I thought I could especially trust both The Washington Post and the New York Times. I really did. And now I can’t.

It’s sad, it’s infuriating, it’s scary. Two formerly reliable sources have been taken over by shady oligarchs and we’ve lost them as mainly dependable journalistic outlets. We’re suspicious of them now, and trust has gone out the window.

Throughout all the fuss over the media’s editorial decisions lately, including their disgraceful attacks on Joe Biden while Donald Trump was running roughshod over any semblance of the truth, I’d kept my subscriptions to both the NYT and WaPo. I justified it by calling myself a necessary witness, a writer who needed to keep an eye on them so I could report their transgressions as well as any good moments.

Even as late as two days ago, even after I knew the facts surrounding WaPo’s strange decision to cancel the already planned endorsement of Kamala Harris, I vowed (in public) to keep my subscription to that newspaper going.

Yesterday morning I changed my mind. I cancelled.

It was bloggers here at Substack and elsewhere who helped me come to that decision. They, much braver and far more articulate than I, spelled out the reasons in such a dynamic way I could no longer make a case for a continued subscription.

Big names here and elsewhere have cancelled. It’s snowballing, and I find the exodus thrilling. The magnitude of outcries are, I have to say, unexpected. The pushback is coming from everywhere, and, while it won’t change the minds of the head honchos at any of the papers refusing to endorse Kamala Harris (Looking at you, too, LA Times), or the minds of the followers of TrumpCo, it’s having an impact. And bloggers can take part of the credit. Bloggers seem to be everywhere on this.

(While more than one commenter has said our single cancellation can’t mean much, I disagree. I liken it to voting. I only have one vote but add that to many others and we can make an impact.)

I only have one voice but add mine to those who warn against a Trump win. I’ve been warning against Trump since the day he rode that escalator down into Trump Tower’s bowels and gave us the crazy news that he was going to run for president.

And I haven’t been alone.

Thousands of articles, columns, and yes, blogs, have been citing Trump’s transgressions, have been warning against him and his sycophants, have been predicting what will happen if we let him get away with it.

And still he gets away with it.

We should have given up long ago, considering what little impact any of our warnings have made. But we haven’t. Most of us aren’t making money at this but we’re still at it, and we will be as long as our democratic way of life is threatened by those Trump-led factions bent on turning the country over to the oligarchs, the white supremacists, the phony Christian zealots.

Have we been disappointed? Disillusioned? Mystified? Driven nuts by Trump’s rise despite all we’ve dug up and presented? Sure. All of that. But have we quit? Hell, no! What the mainstream press misses we bloggers throw out there, in voices so diverse, so clever, so profound we’re quoted and shared and sometimes even made into memes. (I’m deliberately not naming names here. There are too many and I wouldn’t want to leave anyone out. I restack them on Notes or link to their blogs whenever I can and I hope you do, too. Feel free to mention any of them in the comments.)

Substack alone, a haven for bloggers, is a fount of good writing on the democracy front. Our work is getting out there. The best of us are quoted in the mainstream. Some of our bloggers go before the cameras and share their wisdom. Their names are already known or are becoming known.

There’s victory in that.

Does it matter that the threats against democracy appear to be growing, despite all of our efforts? Of course it matters. We don’t do this to fail. But it matters more that we don’t quit.

So what do you think? Do political bloggers have an impact? Can we share space with the mainstream media? Will we be recognized? I think back to Eric Boehlert’s book, ‘Bloggers on the Bus, How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press’, a recounting of the impact bloggers were making in 2008, during Barack Obama’s quest for the presidency. That may have been the heyday for political bloggers, but I can’t be the only one seeing a resurgence, now that the mainstream press has become unreliable and unpredictable.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I’m proud as hell of the bloggers working at making an impact against all odds. How do you feel about them? Can we talk?

There are no paywalls or closed comments or special gifts, but becoming a paying member means I can keep going here. You can join the paying ranks (Thank you, paying ranks!) through Substack below, or you can support my work by donating any amount at any time at Ko-Fi or at Paypal. Much appreciated!

Find me at Constant Commoner

I’m hoping this will be the last piece I have to write on the subject of the Substack ‘Nazi problem’. I wish I could say, ‘problem solved’. If you’ve been following along, you know we’re nowhere close.

The letter titled “Substackers Against Nazis” that, at last count, more than 200 of us have signed and published, got a ton of notice thanks to countless restacks and write-ups at several influential online websites, but total silence so far from the head office. So we’re still waiting.

I’ve been reading the blogs and the comments, thinking about both sides of this issue, and I want to try to clarify my own thoughts on it.

When the letter was first published here at WE, someone on Notes called me a “full-blown delusional Bitch”. I’m okay with that, as I have been with almost any other name I’ve been called over the years. I’m a loud, proud Liberal, a pro-choice feminist, an atheist, a woman of the 50s, a Yooper, and a Detroiter. I’m not immune.

I’m also a long-time political opinionator, learning the trade and the lingo while protesting the Viet Nam War, everything Ronald Reagan, including but not exclusively his anti-worker trickle-down scam, everything GWB, the Iraq War, Donald Trump et al, and any other life-changing irritations we Liberals have found so galling yet are still so out there.

Name-calling comes with the territory.

So let’s get that out of the way: Not much shocks me, I don’t get my feelings hurt by complete strangers hurling insults over the internet, and, as a writer, I’m all for the freedom to choose my words and get them out there. Nobody has to read them, nobody has to like them, but I’ll fight like holy hell if anyone tries to stifle them.

That’s because I mind my Ps and Qs. I stay away from calling for insurrections or all-out culture wars, I’ve never dressed up like a B-movie Nazi, I’ve never carried an anti-American flag, I’ve never threatened anybody, online or off, and I sure as hell haven’t called for the murders of people who do nothing more to irk me than to live on the same planet.

There would be no reason to stifle me.

This is what the anti-censorship absolutists fail to recognize when they warn that any form of stifling will eventually amount to the eradication of free speech for everyone. No it won’t. It will only put a stop to those people who thrive on getting away with their shit and are free to go on to think of things even worse.

For many decades now we’ve had pseudo-Nazis in our midst, those people dressing up in Nazi-like uniforms, stomping around in their brand new jackboots, Sieg Heiling their own pals in dark corners where nobody can see them, pretending they’re an army worthy of Hitler’s worst imaginings about the eradication of anyone not white enough or Christian enough. But now they’re out in the open and, to their utter amazement, they’re being protected!

It doesn’t matter that the people protecting their right to jam any gross thought they might have about how to make certain people’s lives miserable, about how to scare them into submission, about how, even, to kill them, are people who swear they can’t stand them.

Those same people who say they can’t stand them will do everything in their power to keep their movement alive—and they’ll do it by using the excuse that to do otherwise would (get this) take away their right to free speech!

Yes, those same Nazis1 who LIVE to take away everyone’s rights, including their free speech, have an entire American cadre standing by to make sure they can broadcast their ideas on brutality and destruction, their delicious murderous thoughts against everyone who doesn’t agree to submit willingly—which most assuredly would include that entire American cadre shouting down any plea for censorship.

‘Delighted’ is too puny a word for how thrilled the Nazis are for the support. It makes them human. It gives them gravitas. The Nazi movement in America won’t succeed until it becomes normal, and two words—’free speech’—will make it so.

But who am I kidding? It’s normal now. They no longer have to hide for fear of some sort of retaliation, legal or otherwise, as they recruit thousands of gullible people who see the Nazi uniform, the Nazi flag, the Nazi mentality as the New White Christian America.

Nothing to fear, folks, see how accepted they are? See that group out there who want to put an end to the real dangers of American Naziism? Forget about them. See that other group, even more vocal, even more influential, who can’t see beyond ‘free speech’ and a misreading of the First Amendment and refuse to accept that shutting down hate groups actually requires taking away their megaphones? Follow them.

And there’s the problem.

Added for further reading:

PeaceLinks

Free Speech and Moral Boundaries

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2 years ago · 3 likes · 1 comment · Tara Penry

Dear Chris, Hamish & Jairaj:

We’re asking a very simple question that has somehow been made complicated: Why are you platforming and monetizing Nazis? 

According to a piece written by Substack publisher Jonathan M. Katz and published by The Atlantic on November 28, this platform has a Nazi problem: 

“Some Substack newsletters by Nazis and white nationalists have thousands or tens of thousands of subscribers, making the platform a new and valuable tool for creating mailing lists for the far right. And many accept paid subscriptions through Substack, seemingly flouting terms of service that ban attempts to ‘publish content or fund initiatives that incite violence based on protected classes’...Substack, which takes a 10 percent cut of subscription revenue, makes money when readers pay for Nazi newsletters.”

As Patrick Casey, a leader of a now-defunct neo-Nazi group who is banned on nearly every other social platform except Substack, wrote on here in 2021: “I’m able to live comfortably doing something I find enjoyable and fulfilling. The cause isn’t going anywhere.” Several Nazis and white supremacists including Richard Spencer not only have paid subscriptions turned on but have received Substack “Bestseller” badges, indicating that they are making at a minimum thousands of dollars a year.

From our perspective as Substack publishers, it is unfathomable that someone with a swastika avatar, who writes about “The Jewish question,” or who promotes Great Replacement Theory, could be given the tools to succeed on your platform. And yet you’ve been unable to adequately explain your position. 

In the past you have defended your decision to platform bigotry by saying you “make decisions based on principles not PR” and “will stick to our hands-off approach to content moderation.” But there’s a difference between a hands-off approach and putting your thumb on the scale. We know you moderate some content, including spam sites and newsletters written by sex workers. Why do you choose to promote and allow the monetization of sites that traffic in white nationalism? 

Your unwillingness to play by your own rules on this issue has already led to the announced departures of several prominent Substackers, including Rusty Foster and Helena Fitzgerald. They follow previous exoduses of writers, including Substack Pro recipient Grace Lavery and Jude Ellison S. Doyle, who left with similar concerns. 

As journalist Casey Newton told his more than 166,000 Substack subscribers after Katz’s piece came out: “The correct number of newsletters using Nazi symbols that you host and profit from on your platform is zero.” 

We, your publishers, want to hear from you on the official Substack newsletter. Is platforming Nazis part of your vision of success? Let us know—from there we can each decide if this is still where we want to be.

Signed, 

Substackers Against Nazis

Thanks for reading. If this letter resonates, please share this post with others. If you’re a publisher who would like to join this collective effort, we encourage you to repost the letter on your own Substack. If you want to you can let us know you’ve done so here and we’ll add you to the signatory page.

I’m going to say up front there’s much to celebrate in this country. If that seems counter to what we’re seeing every day in the news, it’s because good news doesn’t sell. The success stories inside and outside of government tend to take a back seat to the potentially scary, the downright scary, the outrageous, and the controversial.

But as a whole we’re a country on the move, working toward bettering ourselves and everything around us. We’re still hoping we can figure out how our democracy works and what we have to do to keep it running.

At the same time, the forces working against it are building to an obvious pressure point. They don’t like where we’re going. Their power and their profits are taking a hit and they can’t have that.

They make no bones about wanting to control our lives and since they can’t seem to do it any other way, they’re pressuring the haters to bring down their signature wrath upon us.

They know we’re a country that values free speech and disavows censorship, so they’ve built a campaign of lies claiming any protest against the full-time haters is nothing more than an attempt to silence those ‘freethinkers’ who, they want us to believe, have every right to spew their particular brands of hate—and even act on them—collateral damage be damned.

Who is going to win the battle for the life and soul of the country? Do we get better health care, more equitable social services, a move toward climate responsibility, a stronger work force, a weaker billionaire class? Do we push harder for real law and order?

Must we learn to accept racism, antisemitism, xenophobia, homophobia, or misogyny as the normal process in a ‘free society’?

What is our role in all of this?

I know we all think we’re good and kind and an asset to, rather than a carbuncle on, society, but can we be good and kind and still work against about those people who aren’t? Those awful people who refuse to give a thought to anyone outside their own circles and have no desire to be anything but cruel to the rest?

Damn right we can.

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It’s a kindness to go outside our own perimeters and speak out for those who have no power, who have no voice, who need a helping hand against an entire segment of society bent on destroying them.

It’s a kindness to demand justice when those who are strongest are holding down and intimidating those who are weakest and most vulnerable.

It’s a kindness to castigate those who go on the attack against others over their gender, their beliefs, their sexual orientation, their poverty, their illnesses, their addictions, their caste, their color, their places of origin.

Along with that kindness comes a need to stay strong. The only way to save the people we keep working to save is to get out there and knock a few heads together. Not literally, of course, because that’s not us, but figuratively.

Because those people working to make life worse for the vulnerable among us are bad. To the core.

Now is not the time to be polite. Good manners never won wars. And forgiveness, as I’ve mentioned here and here, is exactly what the haters are hoping for. I don’t have to tell you who the haters are. I don’t have to tell you what they’ve done. You know who they are. You’ve lived through what they’ve done. Now we have to concentrate on the battle ahead.

Someone said recently we should stop calling it a ‘battle’ and maybe try to understand where those haters are coming from. I found the idea startling—that we should be polite when a war is being waged against us. We shouldn’t give it such a provocative name because it might provoke them.

I mean…HELL yeah! Let’s provoke them. Let’s give them holy hell for what they’ve been doing to us. They’re not ‘our friends across the aisle’. They’re not well-meaning but ill-advised. They’re not foolish, they’re not brainwashed, they’re not patriotic, they’re not afraid.

They’re cruel and destroying us is their goal. They march along with false flags and big guns and tell vicious, damaging lies in order to preserve their supposed hold on a country that’s moving past them, that’s rising above them, that’s demanding a reasonably good life for everyone.

We can’t get there by trying to understand them or by setting them a place at a table they’ve made dangerously wobbly. If we’re divided, they divided us. We’re past waiting for them to see the light. Now we have to gather our own strength, set our own boundaries, and stick with it, no matter how hard they go after us for doing what’s right.

It won’t be easy, but war never is. This is a war we have to win. We have to be strategic, we have to brave, and we have to be resolute. While it’s fun to ridicule Trump and the rest by calling them names or making clever memes with distorted faces and figures, that’s a feel-good pastime. Our jobs aren’t done once we’ve passed them along. That’s not a job at all.

Being kind is often hard work. it requires a strong heart and a selflessness we’re not always used to giving. Being kind enough to save an entire nation is nothing short of mind-boggling—which may be why we haven’t thought of it that way. But if you love someone or some thing you’ll do anything to save it.

That’s where we’re at now. Do we love our country and the people in it enough to do whatever we can to save it? Can we set aside whatever petty differences we might have had and work now toward a common good? Is this battle worth it?

How do we do it? Together. We do it by being kind to each other as we work at driving out the people trying to destroy us. We cannot give them the power they demand.

We rise together. No country has ever won the battle against the forces of evil without the majority of its citizens joining together as one to end tyranny. We’ve done it ourselves a few times.

It’s how we got to be the United States of America.

Confession time: I meant to publish this on Constant Commoner, my other Substack newsletter, but somehow published it here instead. Once I hit the email button it’s out there, so here it is and here it will stay.

I rewrote this piece in answer to an on-going discussion going on at Substack Notes this week about allowances for haters and hate speech. I’ll use this as an answer instead of entering into another pissing contest that goes nowhere. Comments are welcome, but this isn’t a free-for-all. Please keep it civil.

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I was going through my old blog, Ramona’s Voices, this morning, looking for a piece I had written about the McCarthy hearings and the Red Scare, when I found this piece on an entirely different topic, written way back in 2009, the day after Bill Moyers quoted from my blog.

I’d almost forgotten it even happened. Shame on me! My 15 seconds of fame and there it was, lying discarded like any old has-been, as if it didn’t change me. As if I didn’t feel afterwards that I could make a difference.

As if…

But I didn’t make a difference. None of us did. No matter how hard we tried we couldn’t get our message out: that simple decency and an adherence to a common cause—namely democracy—would help the planet and make all of our lives better.

Today times are worse than any scenario any of us could have conjured up. There are dangers everywhere, and democracy is in deep trouble, but we writers are still writing, still hoping to make a difference. We’re not going anywhere. We’re not quitting.

Because this is what we do.

(Note: I ran my blog, Ramona’s Voices, for 12 years, from Barack Obama’s first inauguration to the day Joe Biden was sworn in as president. Many of the pieces there were cross-posted or picked up on other progressive websites, but, after fighting with a disappearing comments section—never to return, apparently—I reluctantly archived it and moved to Medium first and then to Substack. I miss that old blog and still keep the active blogroll going, so check it out if you happen to go there. Some of the best political voices are there in real time.)

First posted at Ramona’s Voices, August 2, 2009

My Words on Bill Moyers' Lips - I'm Speechless

I missed Bill Moyers Journal on Friday night, and I was away from home all day yesterday, so I had no idea that the end paragraph of my lowly blog about Moyers' interview with Wendell Potter made it onto the top of his show. (The clip shows my blog at Talking Points Memo but the content is the same as at Ramona’s Voices.)

Rowan Wolf over at Talking Points Memo Cafe saw it, blogged about it, and put it on YouTube. To say I'm pretty stunned by this is a total understatement, and normally I don't like to toot my own horn, but this may be my 15 seconds of fame, so you'll have to forgive me for this, please.

I really want to talk about how blogs and bloggers have come out of the shadows and onto the battlefield. It's becoming a powerful vehicle for change, but with that comes the same kind of responsibility that journalists advocate but don't always follow.

There are thousands of political bloggers out there now, and picking and choosing is a daunting, time-consuming occupation. Our political views are often going to be different, but the one thing we should be able to agree on is that we've come to this new vehicle for change with the understanding that we have an obligation to tell the truth as we see it and understand it. We'll make mistakes--plenty of them. Most of us are not professionals, after all, and our passion is bound to get in the way of clear thinking and good judgment some of the time. But our voices are out there, we're growing stronger, and I believe this country will be the better for it. [Ed. note: I really believed this, and sometimes I still do.]

I came late to blogging. I just didn't get it. So much of what I saw was superficial, shallow navel-gazing--a kind of helter-skelter motor-mouth. Every thought, worthy or not, was transported onto a personal page for everyone to read--even those just merely, superficially interested.

I think it was the blogs on The Daily Kos that first convinced me it could be used to pull together whole communities of people with common interests so that one voice became many, and many voices could ultimately gain the power to change things.

I started my own blog here on January 20 [2009], the day of Barack Obama's inauguration. I remember hesitating for a long time before I hit the "Publish Post" button. It seemed like such a conceited, ego-driven kind of thing to do, but after eight years of GWB, and after the heady jubilance of the Obama victory, the passion to do something was overwhelming.

All I can do, really, is write. I'm not good at organizing or speechifying or getting on the telephone to try and convince anybody of anything. Writing is re-writing, and since I never get my thoughts straight the first time, it's the perfect vehicle for me. But I wanted my blog to include more than just my voice. I wanted it to be an open outlet for the blogs, articles, columns and videos so many of us were sending to one another by email almost every day. I've created links to many of them, but there are so many good writers out there who have a voice and are working hard to get themselves heard. It's becoming a real movement now, and outlets like Talking Points Memo are right at the forefront.

Somewhere along the way, I was lucky enough to find Talking Points Memo and the TPM Cafe. A whole new world! Intimidating at first because, man, are they smart! But I started a blog there and they welcomed me with a generosity that actually kind of floored me. At TPM the comments sections are lively and boisterous -- full of good talk and good information. You can always count on the commenters to make you get it right. That's the terrifying beauty of political blogging--we're all opinionators and we make our opinions known! [Note: TPM Cafe was an open community where we political bloggers could hang out and share our work. It’s still there but closed to most of us now.]

But this one blog about Moyers and Potter must have struck a tiny nerve. My Blogspot blog had 162 hits that day and the next, and it received 656 Diggs--all because it was posted on TPM.

We have the power to make change. On my last post, I was wallowing in Faithlessness, but today I'm energized. And all because Bill Moyers spoke my words for a few seconds on his show.

Okay, I'm ready to get back to work. Health care, labor, education, voter fraud, congressional shenanigans, shameless fat cats--bring 'em on.

What can I say? I'm easy.

(Cross-posted at Constant Commoner)

If you like my work here and want to see more of it, the best way to do that is to subscribe. Each new post will arrive in your inbox, but not so often you’ll dread seeing them there. I don’t write every day. I don’t write on a schedule. I post only when I write something I think you might want to read.

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I remember that moment well. I was a columnist for a string of suburban Detroit newspapers back then and I wrote about it as the day progressed. When I look back on the events of that day it still seems surreal. . . First, that Ronald Reagan, of all people, was actually going to be President of the United States, and second, that the Iran hostages were going to be released on Inauguration Day, after 444 days in captivity. We had heard rumors all morning that the hostages were likely to be released, and we kept hoping that if it was going to happen it might mercifully happen before noon, on Jimmy Carter's watch.

But of course, it didn't happen that way. There are some who always maintained that Republican operatives worked behind the scenes to guarantee the dramatic timing of the release. The talk was out there as I wrote this, and I wholeheartedly believed it, but I kept the politicizing to a minimum--something I probably wouldn't do today. (I would probably write it better, as well, but this was about as good as it got for me back then.)

Otherwise, this is how I saw things transpire on that day:

(For those of you who get both of my newsletters, I’ve cross-posted this at Constant Commoner, as well. I’m posting it here both as a writer and a witness. I was almost brand new at newspapering and maybe it shows. I do know I wish I’d included more of the political feelings that day. It’s what happens when you’re working for someone else.)

January 20, 1981. It is mid-morning and Walter Cronkite is announcing that the hostages are about to be released: "There is no truth to the rumor, however, that they are in the air."

Walter doesn't sound very excited. Why isn't Walter excited? "They are reported to be in two buses, waiting to board the two Algerian airliners a few feet away on the tarmac. . ."

Walter is talking through his teeth; terse, almost angry. This day--Inauguration Day, Liberation Day--was to have been Walter's finest, final hour. On a par with lift-off on the launching pads in the old days, Walter's favorite reporting assignments. All is finally right with the world, and Walter--Walter is mad.

Why? Walter, ever the professional newsman, isn't saying. Partly though, it has to be because this was to have been Jimmy Carter's final finest hour, too, and the barbarians have cheated him out of even that. [Note: Cronkite was forced by CBS to retire just months later.]

We wait with Walter all morning, hoping they will be released before noon--swearing-in time. Please, let Jimmy Carter have this one last moment of glory. Let it happen during his presidency.

We watch the platforms being built, the parade preparations, the sleek, black limousines coming and going through the gates at the White House. We switch back and forth to reporters at separate vantage points to make sure they're ready. We talk about what a beautiful spot this is, on the south lawn, looking out at the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. We wonder why no other president before Reagan has chosen it as a place for swearing in.

Every now and then we quit the small talk to question the motives of the kidnappers in Tehran who chose this very moment in American history to cause another historical event. Who was it to bother? Jimmy Carter? Ronald Reagan? We Americans in general?

Just before noon we switch to Tom Brokaw. He is announcing that momentarily Ronald Wilson Reagan will be sworn in as either the 39th or 40th president of the United States, depending on how you look at it--but first this from Kimberly-Clark. [I don't remember why the question came up. Couldn't find an answer to this.]

NOON. The swearing-in. Nancy is wearing a bright red dress, clearly visible even from the helicopter overhead. Rosslyn is dressed in beige and has not smiled once. The camera swings by her one last time, never to return. Ronald Reagan introduces, for the last time, President Carter and Vice-president Mondale. He is raising his right hand.

The weather in Washington is an enchanting 50 degrees and sunny, as every commentator on every channel relentlessly reminds us. Many minutes of reportage are spent watching for an impending cloud cover.

At lunch, less than 20 minutes after the ceremony, now-President Reagan makes the announcement that the hostages are over free air space. He does it in fine actor-politician style and everybody cheers. No one asks where Jimmy Carter is. No one thinks to stand him in front of a camera to get his reaction.

Someone asks Barbara Walters how she feels about the hostages being released, and she says, strangely, "I feel guilt." Nothing more. Just "I feel guilt".

The interviewer doesn't ask why. Was it because the media played the incident up too much? Not enough? Does she feel guilt because all of her usually effective powers of persuasion might as well have been so much marshmallow for all the help she was to the hostages? Or is it because one newscaster is asking another newscaster how she feels instead of asking someone whose opinion might have mattered?

Never mind, Barbara. Jane Pauley is doing that. Jane is asking hostage family members, "How do you feel now that the hostages have been released?"

The family members each smile and say variations of "Wonderful! Just wonderful!"

Jane's next question is, "What will you do when (fill in the blank) comes home?" The loved one has to think about that. Finally he or she grins and says, "I really don't know--just go back to a normal life, I guess."

Jane grins, too. There isn't much more to say. Back to you, Tom.

Then someone says, "We mustn't forget the seven Americans who died trying to rescue the hostages. They mustn't have died in vain." The mood is spoiled. Back to earth. . .

Now someone is asking why didn't we do the yellow ribbon bit for the POWs? Well, we did--sort of, someone on a panel says. We had I.D bracelets, remember? But, look--you can't compare the two. The POWs were soldiers. They are subject to that kind of stuff--even trained for it. These hostages (the 52) were trained for diplomacy. Makes a difference.

Someone else asks, "Why are we calling them 'heroes'?" But then the trailer carrying the Mormon Tabernacle choir rolls to a lurching stop in front of the reviewing stand. They are singing "Mine eyes have seen the Glory of the coming of the Lord". Tears glisten in the new president's eyes. An American smile crinkles his face. The camera never wavers.

Moments later the local cameras take over and we see the front door of the [Joseph Subic, Jr.] home. The Subics, however, choose to remain indoors, away from the cameras. We become quickly bored with watching a front door and move on to other things.

Robert Ode's people are "just folks". Michigan gothic. We love them.

Earth mother Mattie Jones, mother of Charles A. Jones, Jr., is holding the phone and crying. We love her, too. (Please, Mattie--don't let us in again.)

The scene shifts once more and --is it?. . . It is! Yes! There they are! They're coming down the steps of the Algerian airliner, passing through a gantlet of people--only this time they’re smiling and patting them on their backs.

Former hostage Richard Queen is doing the roll call for us as each hostage comes past the cameras. Barbara Rosen is in the studio. She tells which one is her husband, Barry. "There he is. There's Barry," she says, barely smiling. It is almost an apology.

But, yes. . .we can breathe easy now. We see them and they're smiling. They're free.

This is the day we've all been waiting for. Now the emotions, checked for so long, can flow. Soon the tears will come. . .

Incredibly, they do not. It's not the way we wanted it to be. We didn't want to share the day with this new president. We wanted Jimmy to leave happy, feeling fulfilled. We wanted Walter to leave happy. We wanted it to be like the year the Tigers won the World Series. We wanted to open doors and hear the shouting and the cheers. We wanted to decorate our cars, our trees, our houses with symbolic yellow ribbons.

It happened too fast. We didn't have time. The thugs, with their on-again, off-again promises--their malicious timing--robbed us of even that.

A psychiatrist is telling us that it is absolutely essential that we allow the 52 a speedy return to normal life, else we will have 52 basket cases on our hands.

An entrepreneur is showing the camera several styles of hostage tee shirts, hostage buttons, hostage bumper stickers. "It is just our way," he says, "of showing how much we care."

Suddenly we're exhausted. It's been a long day. We'll sort it all out tomorrow, but now--we can't turn the TV off fast enough.

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This has been on my mind lately and I’m just going to throw it out here: As writers, what is our role in the world today? As citizens of this country, what are our obligations to exposing and enforcing the truth? How much power do we have, really, and, knowing we have almost none, should we keep working at it or just give it up as a lost cause?

I’ve been thinking almost non-stop about this, and I suppose it’s because my feelings are uppermost in my mind these days. I leap from grief to fear to joy to outrage to gratitude to heartbreak to doubt, sometimes within the same hour.

At my request, my nurse practitioner gave me a prescription for something to calm down those racing thoughts. That was weeks ago. I haven’t taken it yet, mainly, I think, because I’m afraid it will make me stop feeling. And I need to feel. So chalk it up to that if this bothers you. But I have to get this out:

I’m at a place in my life where writing is my only form of activism. I’d love to be out there visibly rattling cages, shouting until I’m hoarse, carrying signs that get heavier by the minute, standing amongst my American clan, those people who feel the same as I do about life here in the United States. I can’t. This is it. This is what I do.

It says something that I’ve created a section here called “Politics and Advocacy”, where everything that’s not informational or fun gets put. It tells you I’m aware of your feelings and I don’t want to step on them when I get so outraged I can no longer hold it in. I’ve given you an out. Fair warning. You can opt out of anything political here in this place I’m proud to call a safe space. I want it to be that, but I don’t want to be dishonest while I’m trying to keep it that way. Safe.

What does ‘safe’ mean? My idea of a safe space is a place where all reasonable thoughts are accepted and recognized. Where nobody ever has to be afraid to speak up and speak out. Or be afraid to express their fears. Or be afraid to acknowledge their own successes. I want us to be here for all of us, but I don’t want us to be sheep. I don’t want us to pretend to agree just to be agreeing.

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I don’t expect every writer reading this to agree with anything I’m saying, but this is my space. My own safe space. I’m here as a writer talking to other writers, but when a huge part of my writing involves controversial opinions, I can’t pretend otherwise on a site I’ve specifically created for writers. Our whole mission here is to be honest, and if I feel I have to compartmentalize my feelings about the state of my country, it makes me a fraud.

Does that make sense?

I don’t hide who I am or what I believe in. Take a look at my Twitter page and you’ll see. At the same time, I’m keenly aware that some of you still believe in that adage about politics and religion: If we want to be friends, we won’t talk about it.

Except we’re at a place right now where our democracy is in peril. No denying it. And no hiding from it. We’re in terrible trouble, and I believe all conscientious writers have a duty to acknowledge it. Saving this country from people who want to destroy its very fabric is an undercurrent in almost everything I write. Must I hide it in order to keep readers at a site called ‘Writer Everlasting’?

The title alone gives no clue to the owner’s values, political or otherwise, and most often I’m okay with that. But not now. Not when we’re in the midst of a political, economic, and humanitarian disaster made worst with each passing year by people who are deliberately trying to undermine and destroy the essential goodness we keep trying to promote.

My entire adult life has been as a committed liberal intent on saving us, one and all. That’s not hyperbole or bragging. It’s my goddamned cross to bear. I chose it, and it’s lifelong now. It’s who I am, even when I’m here.

I haven’t seen an exodus yet, and I’m truly grateful to all of you who subscribe, paid or free. In fact, I’m gaining new subscribers with every post, and I thank you for that. I just wanted to get this out there because the midterms are approaching and I’m beginning to panic. I do this every election cycle, for good reason. My side doesn’t win often enough, even when the other side’s choices are appalling. We’re not getting the job done. The dangers are out there and they’re increasing, and if we don’t win this time there’s a real chance it’ll be too late.

But don’t feel you have to indulge me. If, after reading this, you feel this is no longer for you, I’ll send you on your way with no hard feelings. (Always about the feelings…) But if you see the problems as acutely as I do, remember that this is a safe space. We’re writers and we’re living in strange and dangerous times. Are you writing about them? Are you hesitating about writing about them? Can you go on with your writing without thinking about it, or injecting it, even subconsciously, into your work?

How does the current state of affairs affect your writing? Or does it? I’m here and so are you. Let’s talk. (But if any of you reading this see this as permission to talk shit, think again. Not here. Not now. You’ll be gone.)

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When I started my newsletters, this one and Constant Commoner, I thought I could go without ever having to ban anyone. I thought surely anyone who took the time to subscribe to my newsletters would be doing it because they saw something in them that appealed to them.

Ha! Why would I think that??

So here I am today, exposing this guy:

This is the same guy, you may recall, who commented on my last Q&A, saying he doesn’t read other writers—which I of course questioned. (He hadn’t posted in his newsletter yet. He has since, and there’s nothing so far that would make me think he’s the same guy who wrote the comment above.)

Seems pretty innocuous, doesn’t it? So imagine my surprise when he went over to my more opinionated newsletter and wrote comments, including the above, on five of my posts, all either political or feminist-related. One after another this morning, from 8:53 AM to 9:12 AM. (How did he do it so fast??)

He wrote the last one after reading this post.

So he is blocked from both of my newsletters now. But when I look back on his comments here on Writer Everlasting, I see no clue that it would go that way. This is the last exchange we had in the Inspiration Q&A:

Clearly he went over to my more opinionated newsletter and became incensed when he found out who I really was. And now I know who he is.

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I’m not writing this to bring anyone over to my side, but to talk about what our roles are as we write our newsletters. Do we keep on the straight and narrow, hoping to please our readers, no matter who they might be? Or do we follow our own paths, no matter where they might lead?

I don’t expect my readers to agree with my opinions, but most, if they’ve read my ‘About’ page, have been forewarned:

I see writers as advocates and witnesses, and you should know straight up that I’m a political animal of the Liberal persuasion, scared to death right now for the future of my country. Some of what you read here will, by necessity, be me ruminating on what’s happening. I don’t expect you to agree with everything—that would be foolish—but I’m opinionated by nature and by trade. Creative writing is my joy and my respite, and political writing is my calling. I’ll be doing both. I have two sections now; Creative Writing and Politics and Advocacy. So, you can enter either one or make your choice.

Note: I added ‘of the Liberal persuasion’ just now, in case there’s any question. I’m not making apologies for it—it’s who I am—just making sure potential subscribers know enough about me to make wise decisions.

I know many of you choose to stay away completely from political opinions and controversy, but I’m an old Liberal Feminist from the Midwest and I’ve been at this for far too long to suddenly erase that HUGE part of me in order to draw readers.

If writing freely is our goal, part of that will always show up in our opinions. They’re going to be there, if even subtly, because we live in a world that requires constant examination. Part of what makes communities successful is the sheer diversity, and that means diversity of thought, too. I get that.

You might say the commenter I just banned was writing freely. I see the conflict there. But the difference is in the way he chose to address our differences. When I write opinion pieces I’m inviting my readers to give their opinions. I never know which way they’re going to go, but I hope they’re at least civil—and until now they always have been.

So can we talk about this? What are your feelings about opinions and comments? Should I have banned him? Should I have plastered his comments on this page without giving him a chance to respond? What exactly do I owe my readers?

The comment section is open, as always. Can’t wait to hear from you.

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Yes, I’m going to rant about guns right here on my own page. It’s not as if I haven’t done this dozens of times before on other pages of mine. I have. At my now-defunct political blog, Ramona’s Voices, I wrote specifically about guns 17 times, with maybe a dozen more peripherally mentioning them.

I know I wrote that many because I just typed ‘guns’ into the search bar over there and they all came up, haunting me—as if I didn’t already feel so bloody impotent I want to go on screaming and stomping and raging in that same way I’ve done so many times before.

I get it that I’m just one insignificant person and nothing I’ve spent hours and hours trying to say will ever have enough impact to make a difference, but I’m singling myself out to prove a point:

Nobody, not a single writer, even those far more famous than me, has ever been able to write the magic words that will stop the horror of American mass murders, made so conveniently easy thanks to half the country’s obsession with military-style assault weapons.

Yesterday, May 24, 2022, an 18-year-old gunman wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying an AR-15 assault rifle, entered Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and mowed down dozens of second, third, and fourth grade students and their teachers, killing 19 students and two teachers and grievously wounding scores of others.

Thoughts and prayers and cries of ‘enough is enough!’ flooded the airwaves as everyone with access to a camera and a microphone expressed their shock, their anger, their rage, their condolences, their pity, their grief—without a single constructive solution to the problem—which we all know is government-sanctioned ready access to formerly banned assault weapons and the ammunition that feeds them.

The reason 21 lives could be lost in a matter of mere minutes is because those weapons hold magazines that rat-a-tat a spray of bullets guaranteed to shred skin and bone and sinew with one long pull of the trigger. They can’t miss their targets and they’re guaranteed to kill and maim. They’re built to do just that. And there are hundreds of thousands of them out there, in the hands of people we don’t know and can’t get away from because the system is designed to give them cover.

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Why am I writing this in my writing newsletter? You know all of this. I don’t expect you to have the answers, either. But this is my community. We writers believe we hold the keys to insight and information and we spend our lives honing our abilities in order to get it right. To say it right. To make a difference.

I so wanted to make a difference. I honestly, foolishly believed I could make a difference with everything I wrote about those vicious guns and the human devastation they reap. Time and time again, year after year, I thought our outcries—the outcries of every sensible writer in the nation—would do it, would finally end that madness and the visions of all that blood and pain and either make the gun world come to their senses on their own or they’d be forced to by an enlightened government courageous enough to do the right thing without fear of retribution or lost elections.

It didn’t happen. It hasn’t happened. And we’re back again, doing the same thing over and over, as if doing the same thing over and over without resolution isn’t sheer madness.

So here I am today, bewildered and exhausted, because I need you to tell me all hope isn’t lost, that this new massacre is finally the last straw. That change will happen.

The children are dead. The teachers are dead. Again. I can’t stand thinking we’re helpless. We simply can’t go on being helpless, no matter how ruthless and powerful the gun advocates are. If there are answers, they’re beyond me. And you. And everyone else batting their heads against walls while the people who should have the answers are sticking to band-aids and platitudes rather than face the inevitable: they have to stop the killing. They have to.

They have to.

And now I’m done. My day goes on. I’m not one of those parents who didn’t sleep at all last night grieving over the child they’ve lost in a way that is so horrifying nobody ever even wants to think about it.

And there’s the problem. A few days of this and it’s over again until the next time, and the next time, and the next time.

If you feel like talking about this, I’m here. We’re here. And if you don’t, I’m the last person to say you must. I’m exhausted, too. This is all I’ve got. I’m sorry.

(Oh, I wrote this thread on Twitter today. One simple solution. Not that it’ll go anywhere.)

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Mary Oliver’s poem ‘When Death Comes’ is her most famous for a reason: It resonates with everyone.

It’s here:

When death comes 
like the hungry bear in autumn; 
when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut; 
when death comes 
like the measle-pox;

when death comes 
like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering: 
what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything 
as a brotherhood and a sisterhood, 
and I look upon time as no more than an idea, 
and I consider eternity as another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common 
as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth, 
tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something 
precious to the earth.

When it's over, I want to say: all my life 
I was a bride married to amazement. 
I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it's over, I don't want to wonder 
if I have made of my life something particular, and real.
I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, 
or full of argument.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

—Mary Oliver

I’m at an age when posterity is on my mind. Who am I? What part of me would I leave if I left today? How would the people I care about remember me? (I don’t care about those others.)

When my husband died last week the outpouring of love was astonishing, given what a quiet, unassuming man he was. He touched so many simply by being kind, by being generous with his attention. I don’t remember him ever interrupting someone in order to get his own opinion in.

I remember many times when I’ve done that.

It wasn’t that he wasn’t opinionated. He was. So am I. Luckily our opinions mostly meshed and whatever yelling we did from our armchairs we did in unison: Down with fascism! Open your eyes! What the hell?? Get those guys!

I’m going to miss that. We disagreed often on leaders, on tactics, on lost opportunities, but when we agreed it was always on the side of prevailing goodness. We worked for and wanted peace. We wanted the 21st Century to be the century when the world finally got it together and recognized how foolish and deadly most conflict is, how terrible and self-serving demagoguery is, how much better off we would be if we all grew up and learned to get along.

It didn’t happen. It looks like it won’t happen. So can I stop now, now that he’s gone, now that my own days are dwindling and peace should be my personal goal and not a quest to save the world?

I can’t.

Because I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world. I want to spend my days in wonderment, in awe of what we’ve been and what we can be. I want never to stop seeing the good, the beautiful, the amazing. At the same time, I want never to turn my back on the hurt, the pain, the tragedy brought on by the evils we can never stop fighting against.

The world is a real place. If I could write it the way I want it to be I could relax and enjoy it, knowing everyone could relax and enjoy it.

I can’t.

So this is my way of saying I’ll be back, business as usual, some time next week. I’ll be traveling back to Michigan this weekend, driving with my daughter across the southern states, through Kentucky and across the entire length of Ohio, south to north, and finally into our home state, where a cold front threatens to freeze my thinned blood. But that’s where I need to be right now, and where I’ll thrive best.

I want to thank you for your support and your concern. I’ll be fine. I won’t ever be the same but I’ll be fine. There are others so much worse off than I am and I can’t stop thinking about them.

I can’t.

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(Cross-posted at my other newsletter, Constant Commoner)

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I’m just going to lay it out there: Vladimir Putin, a known murderous monster, is laying siege on Ukraine, a democratic country, and I can’t think of anything else until this is settled.

It’s no secret that I’m a political animal from way back; a Bambi-lover, a pacifist until you piss me off, a believer in equity and equality and the right to call out the stupid and the evil.

Writer Everlasting was supposed to be my respite, that place where I remove my political mantle and live and breathe as an ordinary writer, talking up the joys and concerns about writing. But today my heart is in my throat and my stomach is a dam about to let loose and every thought is about Ukraine, good, bad, or otherwise.

I know not everyone feels this way. I wrote about it at Constant Commoner on Friday and it went nowhere. My CC subscribers, it seems, don’t share my concerns, either domestic or abroad. I didn’t get a single comment. Not one. And a couple of subscribers went out the door, I’m assuming slamming it behind them.

I have to be okay with that. But at the same time, I have to ask myself, how much do I owe my subscribers? Writing a newsletter is still new for me. It floors me that at each of my newsletters, Constant Commoner and Writer Everlasting, more than a hundred people have agreed to allow me into their inboxes. I’m so grateful I admit I sometimes find myself holding back and writing for them (you) and not for me.

This was one of those times I wrote for me, and it was a bust. Will this change the way I write now, knowing what they don’t like? I hope not, but I don’t know.

For now, my heart is with those brave citizens in Ukraine. I wake up in the middle of the night with them on my mind. At 1 AM, at 4 AM, I’m checking Twitter, hoping all hell hasn’t broken loose while I slept. And when I see the Ukrainians are still in control, that they’re doing wild things like changing road signs to throw the Russians off, or giving Russian soldiers packets of sunflower seeds so when they die on Ukrainian soil flowers will grow on the spot, or telling young Russian prisoners, most of them confused about why they’re even there, that they should call their mothers to let them know they’re okay, I breathe. But not for long.

I’m crying as I write this. I’m a bundle of emotions and if you tell me I need to take a break I’ll have to tell you to go to hell. I need this. I have to do this.

Whenever this happens, I go hang out at Twitter, where I’m most comfortable, where I can preach to the choir, and they can preach to me. (If you tell me you hate Twitter, I’ll have to ignore you. I don’t care.)

I’ve tried reading light novels. I’ve gone through four of them in the last week and a half and found fault with every one. I read all but one to the very end. I skimmed that one, taking mental notes on how I would have fixed it, but it was a fleeting distraction. One of them, I admit, held my interest until the very end—which was more of a stop than an ending. The author didn’t know what to do with what he had left so he got all treacly, looking for sobs. A shame, because it wasn’t bad until then.

I binge-watched all four episodes of the second season of ‘The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel’ and, yes, I’m hooked again. (OMG, Susie’s funeral speech!) But now I have to wait until Friday for more, so I’m back to stewing.

My way isn’t healthy. I know that. It’s far from professional, but there it is. How much time should I give to those things I have no control over? Why do I think I have to try to save the world? Don’t I know by now it’s a foolish quest and I’m not the one who’s going to do it?

I’m not asking these questions in order to find answers from you. These are questions for my journal and, if I have any sense about me, that’s where this entire piece would go. But this is as close to real writing as I can get right now. I’m sorry.

If you’re here looking for writing wisdom from this long-time writer, this ancient who should have it all together by now, surprise! I’m human. I’ll get back to the basics sometime soon, but for now, this is who I am. This is where I am.

So how are you? How are you handling life as we know it today? Does any of it enter into your own writing, or can you distance yourself and go on following your usual path? I’m guessing you’re all far more disciplined than I am. And yet you’ve read this to the end. I don’t care if you’re shaking your head as you read it. I do care that you’re still here. I love that about you.

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It’s been tough. Nasty thoughts in my head so much of the time, caused mainly by other peoples’ stubbornness and stupidity over everything from voting rights to school board meeting ruckuses to, yes, that damned pandemic! But you don’t come here to listen to me wail. We’re here to manage our chosen trade, to inspire and to be inspired, and dammit, that’s what we’re going to do!

But today I’m thinking again about blogger ethics; about our responsibilities to our readers when we take up the calling of opinionating. It’s not all we do as writers, and if your calling is more benign, leaning more toward love and light, I envy you. But multitudes of bloggers have opinions seemingly set in cement, and, while we’ll never agree on everything, we owe it to our readers to do this one simple thing: strive to tell the truth.

So here we go. This is what I think. My opinion, but I’d love to hear yours. The comment section is our salon, our meeting room. It’s where we have a chance to talk to one another.

See you there!

In the scheme of things, in the world we live in today, is the New York Times more important than the Podunk News? How about the Washington Post? USA Today? Would anybody say anything but ‘yes’? Yet, hard as it might be to believe, there are people in this country who have never seen an issue of the New York Times, the Washington Post, or USA Today, and don’t feel the least bit deprived.

Do those newspapers have a wide reach? Sure. Do they influence people? You bet they do. But so do smaller city and local news outlets. So do internet websites. And so do writers who blog.

We’re all part of the media.

Dictionary.com describes the Media this way:

The means of communication, as radio and television, newspapers, magazines, and the internet, that reach or influence people widely: The media are covering the speech tonight.

Opinion bloggers, political opinion bloggers in particular, strive to be communicators, often working tirelessly to build a large enough readership to ultimately make a difference. The one thing we opinion bloggers have in common with the Big Guys is that need to communicate.

We’re living in fraught times. We’re passionate, we’re frantic, and much of the time we’re shouting into the wind.

Do we have the ability? Many of us do, and some of us are lucky enough to have a loyal following, but carrying that mantle, ‘blogger’, often stops us cold. Anyone can blog, so since there is no learning curve, no requirements for ethics or the truth, no ultimate responsibility, and since we’re out there in huge numbers, we’re rarely seen as influencers.

Blogging is, by its nature, opinion. It’s all ours. We choose blogging over traditional publishing for many reasons, but mainly we choose it because it gives us complete control over everything we write. That’s heady. It’s energizing. It’s a total power trip — and in this current climate it’s a golden opportunity.

With the reduction of newsroom editorial staff everywhere, political blogging, if given a chance, could come into its own. We’re the 21st Century Thomas Paines, putting out political pamphlets crafted on our own devices instead of on hand-cranked printing presses.

In the era of fake news everyone wants to have a say, but not everyone gets it right. How to figure out who to trust? Speaking as a nearly anonymous political blogger, hear me now: I submit that in political blogging there should be a learning curve, along with basic requirements for ethics and truth. There should be a built-in sense of obligation and of responsibility. Political blogging should be a category of its own, with its own set of rules and requirements. If it’s not journalism, it should come as close as it can get.

As distasteful as it may sound to those who blog specifically for the freedom, I say we political bloggers need a society of sorts. If we’re to be believed or trusted or depended on to tell the truth as we see it, we have to get past the blogger stigma and move into a more professional approach.

Political blogging is far different from personal blogging. It’s not indulging, it’s informing. Even on the blogs leaning toward snark and satire there’s a need to be honest. To tell the truth.

“Satire is traditionally the weapon of the powerless against the powerful. I only aim at the powerful. When satire is aimed at the powerless, it is not only cruel — it’s vulgar.” Molly Ivins wrote.

The talent comes in presenting the truth in ways that provoke, that entertain, that make the lightbulbs go off. That’s where the best political bloggers shine. They’re good writers, even when they’re not being paid for their work. They deserve recognition, but they’re toiling in a vast sea of bloggers working to be seen, to be appreciated, to be respected. Not everyone who blogs is good at it. The beauty of blogging — that anyone can do it — is also its curse.

So, I’d like to propose a Good Blogging Seal of Approval. A seal bloggers would have to earn and would be awarded by a board made up of proven, respected opinion bloggers.

Here are some suggested requirements:

· Tell the truth.

· Give ’em hell but use journalistic standards.

· If it’s humor/satire, make it clear at the top.

· Attack the powerful, not the powerless. (Which means families of the powerful are off limits unless the families are part of the power bloc.)

· Don’t dox. Don’t shame unless it absolutely fits and the person absolutely deserves it.

· If you mess up, admit it and make it right. Don’t whine.

· Vet your sources. If it sets off your BS meter, check it out. Even if it doesn’t, check it out.

· Don’t use anyone else’s work without attribution.

· Write well.

I propose the organization title, Bloggers for Truth and Ethics. It could be something else, like The Society of Political Bloggers, or The Society of Professional Bloggers, or anything that suggests that blogging is responsible and has an obligation to get it right.

I propose a panel of judges made up of bloggers known for their enduring, ethical blog posts. They would award a Seal of Approval to worthy bloggers who could then highlight it on their blogs or in their bios. Submissions could come from the outside, either by bloggers themselves or admirers of those bloggers.

We’ll need to work out the details, but to start, The Society for Professional Journalists publishes a useful Code of Ethics. I doubt if they’d mind if we bloggers used it, too. With attribution, of course.

Think about it. And if anyone with more clout than I have (that would be everyone) is interested in working to get this started, let me know. I’m serious about this. It’s time. Political bloggers are needed, they have much to offer, yet they’re nearly invisible. We could change that.

(I’ve proposed this before, with no takers. That doesn’t mean I’ve given up. But if nothing else happens, if you’re one of those bloggers, at least please think about it. And keep that Code of Ethics handy. We have a role in all of this, but we have to get it right.)

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Another change: I’ve enabled paid subscriptions—but don’t worry. All posts will be free and never behind a paywall. Paid subscribers have my undying gratitude and a promise to try and live up to the commitment, but those of you who choose not to pay are just as valuable to me. Writers need readers, and you’re the best!

It happened again: One of Fox News’s most miserable buggers has been elevated to prime time and the MSM is buzzing! OMG! Those rascally rascals over there at the Murdoch horror show! What’ll they do to top whatever it was that set the press off the last time—set up torture chambers for the libtard snowflakes? With a live audience? Ooooo, juicy!

A Fox employee named Jesse Watters has just been elevated to a primetime slot, and the MSM is all over it. (I would provide links but there are way too many.) This is the same guy who, among other cries for attention, called for the murder of Dr. Fauci (but in such a clever way it was bound to make the news:)

Watters is no stranger to controversy. Most recently, Dr. Anthony Fauci called for Watters to be fired after Watters’ comments at a conservative conference, urging people to accost Fauci with ambush interviews over COVID-19.

Watters said, “Now you go in for the kill shot. The kill shot? With an ambush? Deadly. Because he doesn't see it coming.”

That’s an excerpt from an article I read this morning on the Poynter Institute website.

Yes, Poynter.

Poynter advertises itself this way:

What we do:

Through the work of the Center, journalism can evolve its values and the public will better understand how those values impact their everyday lives, building practices of mutual trust and transparency. We:

• Provide custom advice and training to professional newsrooms on stories and policies.

• Advance the ethical standards that guide professional news organizations.

• Work with citizens and journalists to identify issues where journalism can better serve its audience.

• Host gatherings where journalists and experts can exchange ideas.

• Sponsor research into building trust in news and the democratic process.

I’ve followed Poynter since their early days, when I first began opinionating and wanted to make sure I was following at least the basic journalistic standards. They were my guiding light. I’m sure they believe their own hype—and if they’re still doing good work, I’m happy for that. But giving Fox News’s hiring practices top billing on their website tells me they’ve succumbed: Fox News is now ranked as ‘journalism’. At the Poynter Institute.

Something else: Poynter has teamed up with—are you ready?—The Charles Koch Institute. And they’re proud of it.

Per Poynter’s Ethics Policy, Poynter maintains editorial independence regarding curriculum and content. The media and journalism fellowship relationship between Poynter and the Charles Koch Institute is a teaching partnership. A list of Poynter’s largest funders and teaching partners can be found here.

Maybe it’s on the up-and-up— I don’t know what that even means anymore—but a serious journalistic ethics foundation has some ‘splainin’ to do when they team up with the likes of Koch.

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But back to the article: While the writer makes a lame attempt at smacking hands over there at MAGALAND—and I do mean ‘lame’—he chooses to end it this way:

Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott said in a statement, “Jesse’s versatility and hosting acumen has grown exponentially over the last five years, and he has developed a deep connection to the audience through two hit shows ‘The Five’ and ‘Watters’ World.’ We look forward to watching him expand his connection even further through this new solo weeknight hour.”

Watters said he was “thrilled” and “grateful.”

Watters’ new show debuts Jan. 24.

I repeat, I’m not a journalist, but if I were I hope to hell I’d see that for what it is: A big old “Welcome to the Club. Here’s your membership card. Don’t make us sorry”.

But there’s more. In the next segment, Speaking of Fox News…, Poynter writer Tom Jones goes on to talk about Greg Gutfeld, Fox’s late-night talk-show host:

Washington Post feature writer Manuel Roig-Franzia has a new piece out about Fox News’ late-night talk-show host Greg Gutfeld: “Greg Gutfeld has risen to the top at Fox News — and that’s no joke.”

Aside from being “new,” the piece also could be described as rather generous to Gutfeld. Media Matters for America’s Eric Kleefeld called it “glowing.”

“Rather generous to Gutfeld…” is rather mealy-mouthed and damned infuriating, but Jones does manage to tsk-tsk the goings-on over there at ‘FOX NEWS’—as if he had just discovered a few things he hadn’t seen before:

But if you watch his late-night show, Gutfeld comes off more mean-spirited, with an agenda more than just a right-winger who is teasing the left with good-natured pokes. It’s much more dangerous, dishonest and insidious than that. Gutfeld follows Fox News’ playbook of chipping away and delegitimizing real issues — systemic racism, for example. In other words, Gutfeld’s “comedy” show isn’t much different than many of Fox News’ other shows, except it mixes in a few cringe-worthy jokes.

Aha! YES! “Dangerous!” “Dishonest!” “Insidious!” Now we’re getting somewhere!

But Jones wants to be fair:

To be fair, Roig-Franzia writes, “Far from mimicking the deadly serious voice of Fox News stalwarts, such as Hannity, Carlson and Laura Ingraham, ‘Gutfeld!,’ which airs weeknights at 11 p.m. on the East Coast, is banging many of the same topics, but with an irreverent tone.”

But irreverent does not equal less threatening.

Uh huh. Okay. What does? What does equal less threatening? Huh?

Alas, Jones has run out of space. He ends the piece:

Perhaps beside the point, I ask this with all sincerity: Despite its solid ratings, does anyone actually find this show funny? It’s one thing to do political comedy, but shouldn’t it at least be funny even if it is partisan? Roig-Franzia mentions that Gutfeld might be the right’s version of Jon Stewart, who hosted “The Daily Show.” (Trevor Noah is now host.) And while there very well might be a need for a conservative comedy show, Gutfeld falls short of “The Daily Show” because his show is missing two key things that “The Daily Show” has always had: cleverness and, most importantly, humor.

I know it’s not just me. I know I’m not the only one who sees Fox News as a major obstacle to the future of our democracy. It can’t be that the press is willing to give them a pass, if only they’ll come around and see the light.

Or at least be clever and funny.

They’re all doing it: The New York Times, The Washington Post, USA Today, NBC, ABC, CBS, NPR—even C-Span. And now Poynter. Every time they show us what’s happening at Fox News they give them credibility. Fox News matters. That’s what they’re telling us.

They’re holding their noses and giving Fox News a seat at the table, because without them news cycles would be less interesting. They might even be boring. And the 2022 version of journalistic ethics says they simply can’t have that.

(Cross-posted at my sister publication, Constant Commoner)

Can we talk about this? I’m seething here. Either talk me up or talk me down, but give this some attention. This is happening. The mainstream press is not just normalizing Fox, they’re giving them room at the podium. They may be booing in the audience, but they’re shining light on everything they do—not to expose them, but to provide themselves copy that sells.

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Good morning, writer friends. The new year is here and so is my new resolve. I could pussyfoot around and act like I’m ashamed of or embarrassed by what I’m about to say, explaining my reasons to death, when the very word ‘resolve’ should tell me I mean it.

So I’ll get right to it:

I’m a political animal by choice, and that’ll never go away. I don’t just lean liberal, I consume liberalism. I live, breathe, and will die on the sword of liberalism. The kind of liberalism that transcends politics, though I’ve had to learn to live with it in order to get anything done. I’m a Bambi-lover, a do-gooder, a goddamn snowflake. I believe in social welfare and in social justice. I’m for strong unions, universal healthcare, education for all, and government regulations—when they come from good governing for the people.

I’m whatever you want to make of me but I’m probably not what you think.

I’m not brave. I’m confused. I’m flummoxed. I’m scared to death. About everything. I’m old and my mobility is limited, but my brain still functions around 89.5% of the time. I’m a writer who feels things deeply, yet there are times I fear unleashing the thoughts within me. Yes, fear them. They’re painful and overwhelming and I know whatever comes out through my fingers will be wholly inadequate, given the enormity of the dangers I see before us.

I thought Writer Everlasting might be a fine respite from the political struggles and disappointments, and I planned for it to center on creative writing. I tried hard to keep to it, and I’m proud of many of the pieces I’ve published here, but my true heart is in working to keep my country safe. In keeping it a democracy. It’s a struggle I can’t ignore. More and more, authoritarianism, prodded on by super-powerful oligarchs, is gaining momentum, and the dangers they threaten are real.

Yesterday, as we commemorated the first Anniversary of the January 6 coup attempt at our Capitol, I sat riveted as the pictures appeared on the screen again, as I listened to first-hand accounts from the people who witnessed it all, from the Capitol police who were mercilessly beaten, from Capitol staff members who hid under desks in locked offices, from congresspeople who feared for their lives, wondering if this was the end of our constitutional government.

I went to bed making plans.

I want to help. I want to do everything I can in my own small way, not so much because I think I can make a difference, but because I have to live with myself. I can’t turn my back on us now. I have a voice and I’m going to use it. I have to stop being afraid.

I want this to be a community, I want us to be friends, and I want nothing but honesty here. I want to talk about what writing means to each of us, outside of politics, outside of the turmoil that is life in America these days. But if we can’t avoid the aspects of political writing—which, in this case, is also advocacy writing—we should, by all means, include it in our conversations.

We don’t all think the same, nor should we. Conformity is boring! But since we’re this close, I wanted you to know where I am now. I’m struggling, along with my country, to get it right. If this isn’t something you feel comfortable talking about, I want to know why not. An important part of writing honestly is examining your own discomfort. What stops you from writing what you think?

If politics isn’t your thing, how about citizenship? What does it take to be a good citizen? What are the benefits of owning your citizenship in the country you love—or hate, as the case may be? What are the consequences of ignoring the firestorm before you, choosing, instead, to leave it to others?

This sounds like a lecture, and I’m sorry. I’m tired. This eternal fight exhausts me, but more than that, it infuriates me. For each step forward we take a dozen steps back. It doesn’t have to be like that.

As writers, our voices hold power. As writers, we’re stronger as a community. As writers, we must care. It’s what we do best. We care.

I’ve lost a few readers lately; I’m assuming over this. I’m okay with that. We’ll never all agree, but if we’re going to work together as a community of writers, we’ll have to respect each other’s differences. I promise to try my best, but this is who I am, and this is my platform. One thing’s for sure: you’ll never have to guess where I am on the American experience. I’m where I’ve always been.

(I’ve created two sections for Writer Everlasting—Creative Writing and Politics and Advocacy. If you’re a subscriber, you can choose to opt out of receiving either one in your inbox, or you can read the newsletter as it is. Your choice. I love that Substack allows that!)

I’ll always be enchanted by creatives who write to knock my socks off, and I’ll be celebrating them here. We’ll talk about every aspect of creative writing during the next year and beyond, but I’ll also be sharing my thoughts on American politics. It’s too much a part of me to pretend it’s not a major aspect of my writing.

I’ve sectioned off ‘Advocacy’ from ‘Creative Writing’ so you’ll have choices about where you want to go and what you want to read.

I’ll have more announcements in the next newsletter. Thanks so much for being here. I hope you’ll stick around, but if you don’t, I understand. These are troubling times. We do what we have to do. I want only what’s best for us all.

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I spent all of GWB’s years ranting online—incognito, of course. There were plenty of places to rant but eventually I settled into AARP’s political boards, where so many of us, not just the old, cut our teeth on political opinionating—almost always under phony names.

Mine was ‘Good Gracia’. I used it, I admit, to piss off my opponents—a play on ‘Goody Two Shoes’, along with using my middle name, which sounded just Hispanic enough to piss them off even more. I never would have been brave enough to use my real name back then, or to even give a hint of who I was or where I lived.

Without those years of hiding behind a pseudonym to hone my opinionating skills I could never have pulled off a political blog that ran for 12 years. I grew more confident by hiding my true personage in order to bring out my true self. After awhile I stopped being afraid to express my thoughts. I stopped holding back on what I believed.

It was the times: The Iraq War happened in spite of millions of us protesting our hearts out. We woke up angry and went to sleep angry (sound familiar?) and when we woke again, nothing had changed. We were in a war that never should have happened—a murderous, unjust war—and, even as we spouted off, we knew nothing we said would ever make a difference.

Then, in 2004, after a few years of this, I read an unusual essay by E.L. Doctorow. It was called The Unfeeling President, and I was floored by the simple but damning truths he managed to hammer out without once expressing his rage—a palpable but unspoken rage that became the theme of his entire piece. I’ve never forgotten it. (Link below) It changed me. I began to understand the value of patience and clarity and the folly of simply yelling to be heard. I became a better witness.

It often takes the words of a great writer to show us where we need to go. Doctorow wasn’t the first, nor will he be the last for me, but I’ll always be grateful for what he gave me at a time when I was floundering and needed it.

In Praise Of E.L. Doctorow, The Man Who Looked Into GWB's Eyes And Saw Nothing.

Posted first at Ramona’s Voices July 23, 2015:

I heard the sad news yesterday that E.L. Doctorow has died. I've read and loved several of his books, so of course I feel as if I know him personally.  I loved Ragtime and The Book of Daniel and Billy Bathgate.  I couldn't get into Loon Lake, but I'll accept that as my problem and not his. World's Fair and Homer and Langley are both sitting on my shelf waiting to be read.

His writing is what I would call "luscious with an edge". It's stylistic and mesmerizing but you know there is something dark lurking nearby. There is no relaxing with a Doctorow novel, even in the midst of the quiet, beautiful parts. He will grab you and hold you and take you to places unexpected and thrilling. He will force you by sheer wordsmithing to accompany him. He will make you stop and read over and over again the same brilliant, awesomely brilliant, passage.

He was, as everybody knows, quite a writer.

But, of everything I've read of his, one essay stands out from the rest.  It’s the piece he wrote in 2004 called "The Unfeeling President".  It references George W. Bush but never mentions him by name.  In it he says:

But this president does not know what death is. He hasn't the mind for it. You see him joking with the press, peering under the table for the weapons of mass destruction he can't seem to find, you see him at rallies strutting up to the stage in shirt sleeves to the roar of the carefully screened crowd, smiling and waving, triumphal, a he-man. 

He does not mourn. He doesn't understand why he should mourn. He is satisfied during the course of a speech written for him to look solemn for a moment and speak of the brave young Americans who made the ultimate sacrifice for their country 

But you study him, you look into his eyes and know he dissembles an emotion which he does not feel in the depths of his being because he has no capacity for it. He does not feel a personal responsibility for the 1,000 dead young men and women who wanted to be what they could be.

This was near the beginning of the Iraq war, when, as noted, the death toll was still around a thousand.  Before it was over the American death toll would be just over 58 thousand.

When I read this essay, right around the time it was first published, I was new to fighting online for passionate causes.  I was feeling emotionally battered, never before having experienced the kind of ruthless, hateful vitriol that comes of arguments where attackers can hide behind a safe cloak of anonymity.

I was against that war and I was at a loss: How could so many people back a war that had been built on lies, a war that had put America in a position where, for the first time, we had invaded a country that had done nothing to us, a war that was bankrupting us, both morally and monetarily?

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And then I read Doctorow's assessment of George W. Bush and I knew when I woke up in the morning I would put on my battle gear (no nametags, of course) and go at it again.  And again.  And again.

It wasn't the first time he had managed to annoy the Republican establishment by outing the real George Bush.  Earlier that year Peggy Noonan went after him in the Wall Street Journal after Doctorow railed against Bush and the Iraq war at his May commencement address to the graduates at Hofstra.

Fast Eddy Doctorow told a story at the commencement all right, and it is a story about the boorishness of the aging liberal. An old '60s radical who feels he is entitled to impose his views on this audience on this day because he's so gifted, so smart, so insightful, so very above the normal rules, agreements and traditions. And for this he will get to call himself besieged and heroic--a hero about whom stories are told!--when in fact all he did was guarantee positive personal press in the elite media, at the cost of the long suffering patience of normal people who wanted to move the tassel and throw the hat in the air.

I'm only guessing, of course, but I'll bet E.L. Doctorow got a huge kick out of her piece.  Probably even used it as a jumping-off point for another go at trying to stop that dishonest, unnecessary, murderous war.  We know now that it couldn't be stopped.  We didn't have the power.  But writers like Doctorow used words to energize us and gave us reason to keep trying.  We understood from them that in the right hands words can be formidable weapons.

Doctorow may no longer be with us but he left a legacy that can't be ignored.  To some of us that's more than just comforting.

As always, I want to know what you think—even if politics isn’t your thing. Do you see what I’m saying here, even all these years later? Let’s talk.

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