The Horror Show.

Happy Halloween, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Coffee helps.

I’m glad to see the Halloween spirit alive on Threads; I love it and it feels good. This year I am not in the mood, though. I could have tried to get on with it but it wouldn’t feel right to me. This has nothing to do with those who do celebrate and enjoy it this year. Kudos.

I think the horrors we are witnessing every day took the joy of this Halloween away from me. Maybe I am giving in to that feeling when I should keep on living life to the fullest and that is not a good thing but I can’t help it. Halloween is, to me, essentially a children’s holiday. It’s designed for them; to make them happy. This year, in just five days, we will find out how many of us want these children to be able to grow up being happy. Most of us do and hopefully they will.

But what about the others? More than finding out how many of us want a brighter future for our children I am curious to know how many don’t give a fuck about them. I don’t trust polls, good or bad, so any indications from them mean nothing to me. I want to know if we’re making progress and if the number of those who don’t care about our children’s future has decreased. We share our world with some pretty nasty characters who declare openly children only matter before they are born.

What they are really saying is children only matter before they are children, when all they are is part of a woman’s body. They want little girls to carry pregnancies to term after they were raped. They want them forced into marrying men as soon as possible and, of course, to have no rights as they grow up. While most of us find the Handmaid’s Tale horrific they consider it a dreamworld. This could very well be our future. No Halloween for me this year.

As the fact many women married to these kind of men are going to do the right thing in the secret of the ballot station was materialized in a political television ad the reaction was immediate: “how dare they”, and they use this as justification for their view women shouldn’t vote at all. They shouldn’t vote, shouldn’t own property, shouldn’t have jobs, shouldn’t have access to money other than what their husbands give them, provided they bring back receipts.

They look at places like Afghanistan in awe and when the Muslim fundamentalists come up with new ways to degrade and nullify women, like forbidding then to talk to each other or even listen to each other’s voices they slap their own heads and wonder why haven’t they thought about that.

The only difference between Christian Nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism is a burqa. For now. How many women understand this? Most do, I hope, but many don’t.

I am curious about those numbers too. I have been saying for a long time that women will save us this election and the early voting numbers are encouraging. But how many don’t understand the assignment? Quite a few. From those who are on board with a Gilead type society to those who defend societies that oppress women in worse ways today there are plenty of women who refuse to admit this reality. But it gets worse.

Even among allegedly progressive women the rage and indignation is selective at times and they protest Christian fascism with one hand and promote the Islamic kind with the other. Stupidity and ignorance are not a male exclusive. Hopefully it will remain less prevalent among women than it is among men. When Hillary called these people deplorables she wasn’t talking about men alone. There’s plenty of men who see this threat for what it is and find Gilead as horrible as most women do.

There’s plenty of men who don’t want their wives and daughters wrapped in burqas against their will either. It always comes down to religion, doesn’t it? No matter how delusional and extreme the beliefs are the problem is never that some would adhere to them willingly, but that they want to impose it on all forcefully. The parallel between women’s rights in Christian based society and Islamic based society are perfectly aligned. It was never about choice. It’s always been about force.

The power to impose one’s will and belief on everyone else. Darkness. We’re fighting darkness and the dying of the light. No Halloween for me this year. I did what I could; I wrote words to make you think and sent reminders across the country to help people go out to vote and I voted myself. Now all I can do is keep reminding you there’s still time. Five days time. Then all we can do is wait until the results are known. I am convinced we got this. How much is what remains to be seen.

When the wait is over a new chapter will begin; a more important one. The one that will decide whether we will keep the light shining or watch it fade away. Many of those who side with us today against a blatant fascist will go back to supporting a less obvious one. Many who are repulsed by forcing pregnant children to see the pregnancy through will go back to uphold separating them from their parents and denying them lunch at schools.

And many who find rape acceptable if done to Jewish women will keep on thinking that way too. Our all inclusive tent let in a lot of people who don’t really belong in it. Our “blue wave” is not as blue as it should be. Our victory is but the prelude to war. A war we must win with facts, not beliefs.

So get ready to celebrate our victory as it seems more possible with every vote but don’t be fooled by it.

If we fail to deliver tangible results in the next four years the next fascist wannabe will have a clear path to victory. If we fail to expand our numbers among those who really share our view of the world and democracy we will not make up for this one time coalition that will break up in 2026. It was a long and hard road to this point and it will go on after. Don’t stop spreading awareness and fighting for a better world because one election will not change it.

This is but the beginning. We all finally understand what “Democracy dies in silence” means. Don’t ever shut up. Keep the flame alive and never stop raging against the dying of the light. There’s too much darkness in this world for us to ignore it anymore. We are but butterflies but each of us has immense power. Use it. Always. Every single time.

This is not the end. It’s just the beginning.

We’re not going back!

Torn by facts.

Good Saturday morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Must have coffee. Black and sweet.

364 days. Fate has it there is another day on the calendar before October 7 this year. One more day as if 365 weren’t too much already. Jewish holidays are here. Yom Kippur will arrive soon. My childhood holiday season is coming. Christmas. Another year. Time keeps on moving and hope remains.

I became more familiar with Jewish culture since I started using Threads. I raised the Arab-Israeli conflict months before 10/7, shortly after my arrival here, and it allowed me to engage with Jewish threaders from early on, especially with @lisaaronowatelier, and expand my knowledge. I found new books to read and went back to my reference texts… Quite a journey it is still. So much to learn, so little time. I remain a goy, yet in many ways I feel the Jewish people as my own.

I didn’t lose sight of the fight we’re on to save Democracy all along because it is connected to the fight against antisemitism. All this time I am also in awe of the ways so many of my Jewish thriends realize, as I do, there’s an absolute need to identify extreme religious beliefs as the fuel that keeps feeding hate. The secular me was pleased to find so many like minded souls who understand the limits of tolerance as much as the agnostic spiritual me was reassured by it.

Most religions have references to some form of intolerance towards the other alongside calls for understanding and inclusion. Millennial texts that can be twisted and turned to fit self centered people’s interests and turn paradise into an all exclusive resort only the chosen can access. Perhaps the story of the rabbi who was asked why did God create the atheist best describes what religion should be about and yet is not.

I have mentioned before our happiness depends on that of others. There’s no other reward in being kind and understanding, in helping others. No prize for doing the right thing. Many atheists will find themselves in heaven before most religious people ever reach its gates, if there is such a thing. And yet organized religion is like a club with a secret handshake that frowns upon the unknowing. There’s no humanity in it, if you think about it.

What is the point in exacerbating selfishness? Isn’t the invariable result the demonization of all others? Even some atheists seem to have a secret handshake too and frown even harder upon those who believe in what they don’t. In the end, not believing is in itself a system of belief and a sort of religion. We all believe in something, after all. Me, I believe in humanity. I believe in the beauty each of us holds inside. I believe in that which creates music.

I search for meaning and purpose and justice. I don’t expect simple answers to complex questions but I do believe in absolutes derived from facts. Truth is itself the result of a system of beliefs so one could argue there are many, yet what should guide us in our quest for truth is the belief facts matter more than anything and are the ground our convictions should stand on. We may not like them but we can’t deny them. Once you realize this truth all others will follow.

I am torn by facts. They’re inescapable unless you wrap them in a blanket of beliefs meant to give you the illusion of comfort, something you feel better about. It’s tempting and most of us do it all the time. I try not to but I do as well. Facts can be devastating. They are the thorns on the rose of life we wish weren’t so sharp or even gone. But there are no roses without thorns except those you make for yourself so you can find a way to hold them without pain.

Isn’t that the essence of religion after all? The manipulation of reality into a painless illusion we can deal with? The denial of acceptance for our own benefit. All sacred words are but words we read in a state of denial; words, such as these you now are reading, are meant to make you think without prejudice. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons Judaism appeals to me. Of all religions I know it is the most conflicted one and in itself an endless struggle.

But it’s still a religion and as such it suffers from the same twists and turns some people use to manipulate it into their own interests. Very often I read about how Islam teaches hatred yet it does not. Some people twisted and turned it into it and got away with murder. Perception becomes reality and reality becomes fact. We may not like it but we can’t deny it. Such twists and turns are what we call radicalism and its existence converts spirituality into the material world.

When you analyze what is happening in the world today make sure you base your analysis on facts, no matter how they make you feel. For 364 days we have been asking for the hostages in Gaza to be released. Many of them never would alive. Some may still make it. Hope remains. Thousands of people have been living the horrors of war for 364 days in a way we did not expect but the fact is war is the only reality they have ever known. That’s what is wrong with this picture.

The world woke up to this reality on October 7, 2023. And we don’t like it. Personally, I don’t like the way it’s going. I don’t like people I despise must make things right but it’s a fact I can’t ignore. I can only hope this terrible mess will bring about a better future even if I don’t like how it is unraveling. Change will come whether we like it or not; all we can do is try to make it happen based on facts and grounded in reality, not wishful thinking.

There are perverted reasons behind the ongoing war in Israel. We all know what they are and who benefits from it. But there are opportunities that were not possible before it. Opportunities for peace and a better future that only this war could produce. Ignoring those opportunities and missing them because we don’t like the facts involved is a mistake. As it’s a mistake to ignore the fact Israel became in 1948. Like it or not, denying that fact will not set anyone free.

The same goes for the Palestinian Arabs who are themselves a fact. Denying it won’t set anyone free either. Couple those two facts alone and you will discover things you don’t like and wish were different. They’re not and we can’t wish them away. Wishing them away is what radicals want. Picking sides only works if you strip yourself of any truth rooted in fact free beliefs even if the sides are good and evil. There’s nothing esoteric about it, nothing religious either.

The undeniable truth is the fact 364 days went by and many times during those days opportunities were missed to take the hostages home. I don’t know how many more will go by still but I know we can’t give up. Perhaps Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin illustrate this reality the best. They lost their son Hersh to this terrible reality. A senseless loss. Yet they persevere for the sake of others in which hope still lives and in a country at war for its own survival they hope for peace.

The hostages became the image of everything that is wrong with this situation and everything we don’t like about it. The undeniable fact we cannot ignore. Perhaps we should start there and trace our steps back to where it started, fact by fact. Maybe if we do that we can find a way out.

Try to remain strong and hopeful.

Shabbat shalom.

Sweet promise.

Good morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. First coffee of 5785 is sweet.

Today is also National Poetry Day. It’s been a while since I posted in poem… I roam the SM landscape usually looking for animal posts, always have. I run into the “other stuff” occasionally and we all know it’s bad. Very few good news. A couple of days ago I found a simple video of a girl and a cat like millions of others. But not so much.

For some reason I can’t explain it made me think of life as we know it and as we wish it. Of all that is wrong in this world more than of what’s right. All our struggles and battles, everything we find unacceptable, the bane of our existence. Every single conflict begins and ends inside us. And that’s where it exists. Looking at the man in the mirror I hardly recognize him; he changed so much. He’s old, he looks tired. Time passes.

There’s no trace of happiness on his face except for a glimpse of the child within and the gratitude for life itself which is now renewed after a brief encounter with the prospect of an untimely death. Then it occurs to me death is expected to be so and rarely otherwise but I am still grateful and still aspire to live long. Don’t we all. We depend on hardships to appreciate their absence as if without them we’d be oblivious of what a good life is, free from suffering.

We often forget the true meaning of harmony and balance and pretend good can exist on its own. It can’t. We wouldn’t be able to recognize it if it did and the feeling of utter emptiness and sadness, seemingly inexplicable, would be nothing more than the absence of evil. And it all plays out inside ourselves, where it all begins and all stops. It looks like at times our perceptions are created by our actions rather than the opposite, in a game of excuses we play to sleep at night.

There is much evil in this world and we could use less of it, for sure. Balance. The reason we’re so upset with our world is not because evil exists in it but because so little good remains. Perhaps we are looking at it wrong. Perhaps we should be focusing on creating more good rather than eliminating more of all that’s bad. We’ve been trying to put out the fire with gasoline for so long we don’t even notice it anymore.

You can’t get rid of one thing in this world that would fix all others as there are so many reasons for torment in our lives but if I could I would take two of them out: hate and greed. Trust me, there would still be many other wrongs to make right but at least our lives would feel lighter and we’d have a fairer shot at happiness. We need more acts of kindness and more love in our lives, even when in battle. It’s hard. When someone hates you it consumes part of your loving soul.

That’s perhaps what hit me, watching that girl and that cat. It wasn’t the peaceful simple life it portrayed that moved me. It was all that lays behind it: the sadness and hardship, the hatred and greed, the torment of life itself. Without them that girl and her cat would be just another clip among millions of others. Meaningless. As it is, it turned out to be what I wish life could be, in a few seconds. How wonderful would it be to live life so simple and perfectly balanced.

Do not allow evil to consume you for that is what it does: it turns you into it. In a world of hate, please love. Be kind and selfless in the face of greed. You don’t have to stop fighting to do these things. You will find your heart lighter and your soul lifted. A sparkle of light in a sea of darkness. The calm within the torment. Hope where none existed before. You will become the promise. Trust me on this.

Have a peaceful sweet day. 🍯🍎

The girl and cat video:

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZTFUAVeAy/

Knock Out.

Good hump day, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Damn, this coffee’s good.

I watched what was, in all probability, the last debate of this election. I know many of you decided not to and, hell no, I don’t blame you one bit. Me, I’m a political junkie so I take the good with the bad and try to stay away from the all bad stuff. Yesterday there was good and bad so I watched. Walk with me a little. Bring coffee.

At 9 pm there I was, staring at my phone. The rest of the family opted out and I didn’t feel like watching it in the bedroom or at my desk, besides I am a mobile kind of guy and no smoking indoors so pretty much it’s the phone 90% of the time. I was a bit concerned about the format and the stupid fact checking rules: no moderator checks and each candidate would take that role. Not good. Obviously, when your opponent is a serial liar you’re left with two options.

Either you let him control the debate and spend all your time pushing back at each lie, which means talking about it, or you just brush it off quickly and only real fact check the most outlandish statements, focusing on your message. Luckily for us, despite being an inexperienced debater, Tim Walz went with the second option. The moderators (two women, btw, which was good) were not as bland as I expected and we were in business.

Because Iran had just attacked Israel the first question off the bat was about the Middle East. Surprisingly, Walz made a stronger case for standing with Israel than Vance. There is a dangerous demagoguery in the fascist right that usually poses as “die hard for Israel” in a Bibi kind of way, which makes the Democratic Party’s position seem weaker. It’s not. It’s stronger and it’s very real. The response to the missile attack proved it once more. So a good start.

Walz did a good job, yesterday, though he warmed up to it along the way. From the start it was obvious he was not there to destroy Vance and that’s on brand for the coach. It did pain me he wasn’t more aggressive and allowed a real fascist look like just another guy on that stage, which the moderators were also interested in doing. To me that was the missed opportunity of last night: if you have a fascist POS on stage treat him like one. But no. Did it matter?

Yesterday, in my morning post, I exposed the shape of darkness JD Vance is involved in designing. He is nothing like the smooth liar piece of shit we saw. He is a very dangerous, unscrupulous fascist wannabe with very sinister friends in very dark places. His performance was pathetic but pathetic is more “weird” than dangerous and we know that’s Tim’s vibe, so he stuck to the weird for the most part. It would have helped to expose JD as the menace he represents but… to whom?

Liberals watching already know he’s a fascist and what his real intentions are, conservatives don’t give a shit and mostly go along with it. That leaves the independents, usually less informed. As satisfying as having Vance exposed as a Pluto/Techno bitch would have been I don’t think that exposure would mean much considering that’s not Tim Walz’s expertise. As it turned out, Walz had excellent moments when he exposed JD as the POS he really is. We’re getting there.

As it became the norm with the GOP campaign, the best way to reveal their ineptitude and total absence of rationality is to let them talk a little bit more than they should. And Vance didn’t disappoint in providing lots of cringe moments all by himself. The one that really, really made me cringe was during the abortion part of the debate. For starters it’s odd to watch men debate abortion. Walz did a pretty good job at leaving it to the women, as he understands this.

A woman’s right to choose is nobody’s business but especially, as the coach would say, none of any man’s damned business. Period. If you don’t have a uterus just say women know best and then shut the fuck up. But JD is not of that persuasion and he had a lot to say about women and abortion. After all, he even has a good friend who had one of those. Ouch. I mean… What, the, FUCK? I hope the friend in question applies one of her boots between his legs wholeheartedly. I really do.

Besides that extremely ewwww moment, he spent the rest of his time avoiding to talk about abortion and pointing out, again and again, the solution for it is to give women all they need to have more babies, lots of babies! Like tons of them. He was so obnoxious about it even conciliatory Tim lost it and shot back something along the lines of let’s give women the conditions they need to choose and “then you can have all the babies you want”. I mean… Fucking DUH!

The moderators chose to apply pressure on the candidates’ qualification for the job by throwing two curve balls at them. I expected that. For JD the problem was picking one so I wasn’t curious about it; no matter which he wouldn’t answer and would weasel his way out of it lying, no surprise. So I wondered what the fuck were they going to throw at Walz. I swear I didn’t even know he had misspoken when he mentioned when exactly he visited China. That was it. Okay. Next.

A quick parenthesis to mention the awkward moments provided by the Springfield “Haitian pet eaters”, when JD tried unsuccessfully to mansplain “the law” and the “immigration app” to the moderators who immediately shut him down by cutting off his mic, one of them even fact checking him on the spot, which led to the hilarious moment of the night when Vance admitted on live television the only reason he was there was because CBS agreed not to fact check him. Look it up. The memes abound.

Eventually we got to the good stuff. The stuff that even a honest to God good tempered man like Tim Walz loses his shit over: Democracy. Vance was slowly led to the point where, after wiggling himself out of every question like the spineless douche he is, there was no room to maneuver. He was asked point blank who lost the 2020 election, not by a moderator. By Tim Walz. Aaaaand he doesn’t know. And because that wasn’t stupid enough he got a cherry and put it on top.

Not only didn’t he answer who lost the 2020 election, he looked absolutely convinced (wink wink) TFG peacefully and orderly allowed for the transfer of power to take place at the inauguration of January 2021, just days after January 6, which TFG didn’t even bother to attend because, you know, he’s such a good sport and a paladin of democracy. At first I didn’t believe he said that. I was still recovering from the “who lost the election” knock out by Walz. But yes he did!

As Michael Steele would remark later on, regardless of anything he said in the debate before that moment, the fact Vance can’t bring himself to concede the GOP was defeated in the 2020 election completely disqualifies him for office. ANY office. The “TFG paladin of democracy and peaceful transition” cherry on top was just a bonus. And that, my thriends, was when Tim Walz won the debate. Not because he was losing until then, but a technical KO has got nothing on a real one.

A lot of important matters were discussed during last night’s debate; I mentioned a few. On each topic Vance lied or didn’t address the issue and Walz was knowledgeable and on point. It was a matter of sheer luck CBS left democracy for last but nothing like a knock out to finish a long match. It was perfect. Liberals know why, Republicans don’t care, Independents might. Mission accomplished.

Tim Walz will never be an attack dog. We got plenty of those. He is the honest man who deeply cares about his fellow citizens, those who exist and those not yet born or on the path to being one. He’s a good man and those we don’t have plenty of so be grateful he’s one of them. Yes it’s a hard world full of real threats but if everyone was like Tim Walz we wouldn’t need attack dogs. And the world would be a better place.

No, We’re not going back!

The shape of darkness.

Good morning, Threaders, Threadheads, and all in between. Coffee endures.

Life still isn’t back to normal, whatever that is, so I haven’t been posting regularly. Hopefully that will change soon. I did watch a segment of Rachel Maddow during dinner yesterday that brought back some thoughts. I don’t watch her like before but I was forewarned of this bit and it was worth watching.

It was what I call a Maddow period piece, where she starts with a forgotten history lesson and lands on present day events reminiscent of it. Yesterday it was the American fascist movement drive to end superior education, public and private, that does not conform to its wishes of what education should be. It started in the 1930s and went on to the 1940s and it was then an echo of the antisemitism spreading in Europe. Rachel linked those bygone fascist designs to tonight’s VP debate.

The reason for that is JD Vance has also advocated for the reshaping of our Universities into conformity models or their obliteration from public life. His reasoning is rooted in old ideas being recycled by neo fascist ideologues, among which his right wing blogger friend Curtis Yarvin, a not so obscure anymore proponent of the end of the American democratic experiment in favor of a dictatorship. This is JD Vance’s source of inspiration for our future.

In their minds, our democracy has become so corrupt and inefficient it needs to be completely done away with. Like a tumor. In its place a mixed Pluto-Technocracy with a strong man at the top, a CEO like figure put in place by plutocrats and technocrats to rule as a dictator. As for government as we know it, it would cease to exist and extra constitutional measures would replace the foundation of the rule of law, the rationale being that the constitution is preventing this “evolution”.

No constitution needed. No bill of rights required. A brave new world where wealth and technology replace what they call the failed Western values of democracy and justice. In JD Vance’s own words the “evolution” into a “political religion”. This is what lies beneath the Christian nationalist platform the GOP has turned into. The link to the Universities derives from the end of all things government represent today and the paradigm of the end of education as we have known it.

I understand the point Rachel was making regarding College education and the past and present attempts to get rid of it, especially those who are bastions of critical thinking and engines of humanity applied studies, but she missed the chance to mention today’s biggest threat to that system of knowledge: the same old antisemitism displayed by the far right in the 1930s-40s in the new clothes of far left fanatical ideologues inspired by radical Islam with the exact same goal.

Rachel Maddow is very bright. She didn’t miss it. She just chose to stay silent with the dubious cover of her subject matter: Christian nationalism. She’s right. That is our greatest threat and what we are up against on the ballot very soon. What is it, 35 days from now? To me around 20 days, since we always vote early. But we cannot pretend the threats also present on that ballot posed by third party candidates who embrace antisemitism as a weapon are not there.

I understand that the inclusion of today’s most obvious danger to superior education posed by radical Islam inspired far left groups would be a distraction from the clear Christian nationalist threat running in our body politics’ veins for decades, but Maddow missed the opportunity to close the horse shoe, especially since she started the segment with a very clear identification of antisemitism as the drive for that undercurrent from the start.

This is what I meant when I initially turned away from Tim Walz’s “Weird” approach. Antisemitism isn’t weird. It’s the poisoned root that feeds the hatred from which all others spawn. And it’s not to be ignored when its ugly head rises from the left wrapped in a fashionable keffiyeh and justified by the “martyrdom” of children from a selected breed. I understand why this election is such a close contest. I know TV ads are effective. I know most people are not informed or aware.

But we are. It’s our duty to make this reality known and spread awareness to it. We’ve been doing it and we have to double our efforts. We don’t have much time left so let’s get to work. Do all you can to keep our momentum going and get people out to vote blue up and down the ballot. Stay joyful and hopeful but also aware of what it is we are up against. Millions of kids are voting for the first time this year. Let’s make sure it’s not their last.

How to connect that clear and present danger to the joy in the promise of a brighter future is not easy or uplifting but we must find a way to keep in mind this is not just another election. If we lose it will be our last. Make sure everyone knows this. If that doesn’t get them all out to vote I don’t know what will. Stay focused and strong. There’s a lot more of us than there are of them. All we need to do is vote. So let’s go win this thing.

We’re not going back!