Gathering Our Powers
Election Special
One of my main reasons for being alive on planet Earth is to help alleviate the world's suffering and enhance the world’s well-being — among my fellow humans as well as animals and plants.
That’s why I’m voting for Kamala Harris. In my estimation, she is far more likely than Trump to alleviate suffering and enhance well-being.
Harris’s effects will be especially benevolent for women who want to control and manage their own destinies and reproductive health, as well as the men and nonbinary people who care for those women.
Harris’s effects will also be highly positive for the following: People of Color, immigrants, LGBTQIA+ people, small business owners, working families, elders, veterans, people with disabilities, middle-class taxpayers, people who need child care, home renters, home owners, students, union members, farmers, anyone who hopes to alleviate the climate crisis, those who need help getting the physical and mental health care they require, those who want better gun control, those who want the separation of church and state, and people of lower financial means.
Helping these groups will in turn lift up the fortunes of everyone else, except the top 0.1% of the wealthiest billionaires. They will be slightly inconvenienced.
I agree with 97% of all Kamala Harris's well-thought-out policies, which are listed here: https://kamalaharris.com/issues/
If Donald Trump is elected, on the other hand, he would do what he has done before, but far worse. He would dramatically and grotesquely increase suffering. It’s his specialty! He is the most toxic and sinister human being to ever appear in American public life. Even worse, he and his morally bankrupt political party seek to establish a theocratic fascist state, supplanting 248 years of democracy.
THE PERFECT IS THE ENEMY OF THE GOOD
I disagree with Kamala Harris on some issues, but I think she is a smart and compassionate leader who will serve the best interests of the most people.
No candidate who has ever run for the presidency, including Bernie Sanders, has EVER been perfectly aligned with all my values. My yearning to serve the highest good is not comprised by toxic perfectionism.
When Harris becomes president, I will push her to work forcefully to implement a permanent ceasefire in Gaza and formulate a two-state solution for Palestinians and Israelis.
I will also pressure her administration, in collaboration with Congress, to end military and financial support to three countries that are currently wreaking murderous mayhem on marginalized ethnic groups: 1. Israel on the Palestinians in Gaza. 2. Saudi Arabia on the Yemenis in Yemen. 3. The United Arab Emirates on the Sudanese in Sudan.
I also know that the actions Harris takes once she becomes president will be a thousand times better than what Trump would do in regard to Palestinians and Muslims all over the world, including Muslims in the US.
Trump has a long history of bigotry toward Muslims. See the facts here: https://tinyurl.com/TrumpMuslimBigotry
In the first week of Trump’s presidency in 2017, he banned people from six Muslim-majority countries from entering the USA, and he slammed the door on Muslim refugees. He has said he would do that again if re-elected.
Trump fantasizes about turning Gaza into another Monaco, with beachfront resorts for the ultra-rich. https://tinyurl.com/GazaLikeMonaco
Jared Kushner is Trump's son-in-law and Trump's former senior advisor. He has said this: "Gaza's waterfront property could be very valuable. It's an unfortunate situation there, but from Israel's perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up."
Trump has promised to ruthlessly crush pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses and elsewhere. He has even made the bizarre boast that he would expel American citizens who protest—throw them out of the country!
Israel’s version of Trump, the hideous Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, desperately wants Trump to win the election because Trump will give him a freer hand to oppress and kill Palestinians.
While president, Trump moved the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem, empowering Israeli extremists. He also recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights and proposed the Middle East plan that dismantled any pathway to Palestinian self-determination. More such provocative acts would characterize a second term.
For these reasons and others, major Muslim groups in the US have either outrightly endorsed Harris or warned that another Trump presidency would be a disaster for Palestinians.
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MOST DANGEROUS PERSON
Former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark A. Milley — the highest ranking military officer in the US from 2019 to 2023 — says Trump is “the most dangerous person to this country” and “fascist to the core” — echoing dire warnings by Trump’s former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and others in national security circles.
Trump shows gross signs of dementia.
Trump speaks like Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini
Above is the cover of The New Republic, an intellectually rigorous magazine that has been published for 110 years. Here's what they say American would look like under Trump’s autocracy: https://tinyurl.com/TrumpWantsFascism
Read a preview of what Trump’s ugly, repressive, fascist regime would be like.
Read about the special danger to women if Trump is elected.
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GHASTLY DELUSION
The winner of the election will either be Harris or Trump. That's 100% guaranteed.
Some people suffer from the ghastly delusion that it doesn't matter whether Trump or Harris is elected — that the world (including the world of Gaza) will be equally horrific under the presidency of either one. That’s a dangerous hallucination.
These people are isolated in their haze of privileged entitlement, fixated on a pathological kind of faux idealism, and unwilling to understand or acknowledge how the world actually works.
PSYCHIC SELF-PROTECTION
Amidst the turmoil in our shared environment, we must care for ourselves vigorously.
Many of us are sensitive lovers of life who take the collective suffering and peril personally.
We may be inclined to turn the suffering and peril into personal feelings that negatively impact our psychological and physical health.
So let's be vigilant to ensure we protect ourselves and nourish our well-being.
We're no less passionate about our activism! We're simply ardent in safeguarding our psychic integrity.
Read tips about how to protect yourself psychically.
We must band together with love and ingenuity to ensure that Trump is never president again
Below are key elements of the agenda that Republicans plan to implement if Trump is elected president. They are from the rightwing manifesto, PROJECT 2025.
* Seeks total ban on abortions regardless of viability, rape, or health of the mother.
* Severely limits access to contraceptives and IVF.
* Takes away access to free emergency contraception for 48 million women.
* Calls for the arrest and detention of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. by using the military to capture and place them in internment camps.
* Repeals the Affordable Care Act and cuts funding for Medicare and Medicaid. Removes protections for pre-existing conditions.
* Removes legal protections for LGBTQIA+ people, allowing discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. Highly prioritizes and favors families comprised of a married heterosexual mother and father, and their children.
* Bans African American and gender studies in all levels of education.
READ THE REST OF THIS LIST . . .
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Some misinformed fanatics say Trump has nothing to do with Project 2025.
But here are the facts:
140 people from Trump's former administration contributed to Project 2025.
270 proposals in Project 2025 match Trump's policies and promises.
Trump's name is mentioned over 300 times in Project 2025.
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DEMOCRATIC MAJORITIES IN THE HOUSE AND SENATE
To preserve American democracy, we must also elect Democratic majorities in the Senate and House.
The Democratic Party is far from perfect, but it’s profoundly better for the health of the American experiment and the vast majority of American people than the pathologically disturbed Republican Party.
And no, the two parties are NOT the same. Not even close: https://tinyurl.com/NotEvenCloseToAlike
There’s only one party that believes women have the right to bodily autonomy,
that “thoughts and prayers” aren’t a sufficient solution to a gun violence epidemic that exists nowhere else in the world,
that being pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine isn’t a good look for a freedom-loving NATO-member country,
that man-made climate change is a real threat that we need to mitigate,
that LGBTQIA+ people deserve all the rights everyone else has,
that black people did not benefit from slavery,
that universal health coverage of the type that every other developed nation has would be cheaper and lead to better public health outcomes,
that it’s no crime to be poor,
that unions are good,
that shutting down the government and wrecking the economy are bad,
that demonizing brown people and trafficking legal asylum seekers to random places is no way to solve immigration issues,
that the 2020 presidential election was not stolen.
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ACTIVIST MUSIC
My beautiful friends — We need to nourish our spirits with activist music. Here's a partial list.
"You Can’t Kill Light, You Can’t Kill Love," by Monica Pasqual: tinyurl.com/YouCantKillLight
"Put a Woman in Charge" by Keb Mo and Roseane Cash
"Lions," Skip Marley: tinyurl.com/WeAreTheLions
“The Lighthouse” by Stevie Nicks
"Resilient," Rising Appalachia: tinyurl.com/TrustTheMovement
"All Nations Rise," Lyla June: tinyurl.com/3pvkm6hy
"We Rising Up," Climbing PoeTree: vimeo.com/268631645
"We Shall be Known," Thrive East Bay Choir: youtu.be/aKhjaN72dRQ
"Hungry World," Rising Appalachia + Aja Black: tinyurl.com/ym9y73yb
"This Joy," the Resistance Revival Chorus: tinyurl.com/4pupvjv9
More songs here: https://tinyurl.com/4fu76x68
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Thank you for speaking out. Some people think you shouldn’t mix the spiritual with politics, but it’s all mixed anyway. It’s all life. Thanks for speaking the Truth.
Thank you for continuing to be a voice of reason in a sea of chaos.