Last Word

Updating the American and French Revolutions, without Guillotines or Guns

June 22nd, 2020

#15 of On Tyranny: Contribute to Good Causes“Be active in organizations, political or not, that express your own view of life.Pick a charity or two and set up autopay. Then you will have made a free choice that supports civil society and helps others to do good.” - Timothy Snyder

“Wanting to be wanted; needing to be needed…”-Rosabella, in Frank Loesser’s Most Happy Fella

“The (French) National Convention (Parliament) declares slavery abolished in all the colonies.In…

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Retrieving the Truth From Bill Barr’s “Memory Holes”

June 16th, 2020

“It is impossible to carry out democratic elections, try cases at court, design and enforce laws, or indeed manage any of the other quiet business of government when agencies beyond the state also have access to violence. For just this reason, people and parties who wish to undermine democracy and the rule of law create and fund violent organizations that involve themselves in politics.” - Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny, #6 “...we make a great mistake if we imagine that the Soviet…

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A Pandemic of Prejudice Confounds White Privilege

June 9th, 2020

#13 of On Tyranny: Practice Corporeal Politics“Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.” - Timothy Snyder

“By embracing the politics of inevitability, we raised a generation without history...One thing is certain: If young people do not begin to make history, politicians of eternity (self-absorbed...longing for past…

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Underlying Conditions of Presidents Andrew Johnson’s and Donald Trump’s Racism

June 2nd, 2020

#4 of On Tyranny: Take Responsibility for the Face of the World - “The symbols of today enable the reality of tomorrow. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away, and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.” - Timothy Snyder

“(Abraham Lincoln) would have proven the best friend the South could have had, and saved much of the wrangling and bitterness of feeling brought out by reconstruction under a President…

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Truth will set you free, or Love in the time of Corona

May 31st, 2020

by Marie Hoff

We greet each other very carefully,
Like porcupines getting ready to make love.
Arms in big virtual, barrel hugs,
Lots of embarrassed joking and choking
Hoping we don’t look as foolish as we feel.

Hope rises and falls, and rises again
Like the panting of a small injured bird,
testing Ms. Dickinson’s thesis, that it
Never stops singing, no matter what.

Funny things happen: suddenly millions of people
Need millions of rolls of toilet paper: is this an
epidemic of diarrhea or…

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Fighting Fire with Water (A Blue Wave)

May 26th, 2020

#14 of On Tyranny: Establish a private life. – “Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware on a regular basis. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Tyrants seek the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have hooks.” – Timothy Snyder 

“The only weapon of self defence I…

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Combatting the Taliban, the Nazi, in Ourselves

May 26th, 2020

#6 of On Tyranny: Be wary of paramilitaries“When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching with torches and pictures of a leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the end has come.” – Timothy Snyder

“Men who rape, kill, torture, and mutilate because they don’t like how another person looks or behaves, what he or she believes, or for whom he or…

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Testing Checks and Imbalances with “Captain Un-America”

May 12th, 2020

“(the Federalist authors) saw that government must rest upon the will of the majority, but they saw too that majority rule must be tempered by a system of checks and balances designed to safeguard fundamental liberties and give time for sober second thought. They saw...the important distinction between the jurisdiction of government and the area of government—between the power which government must have to be effective in its proper sphere, and the area to which government must be…

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Essentially unessential: A collective response

May 10th, 2020

by Michael Str!ke, Krissee Grosso, Hoff, and others

A restaurant can be a very special place. It can be where you see the folks that live above, around, and beyond; coming regularly and enjoying the flow of the days, the nights, the food, and the drinks. It's where workers come together and bond, laugh, cry, work, sweat, and serve the community that keep that business running. But we have to remember that a restaurant, with nothing inside of it, can be a very different place. We know…

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Essentially unessential: From the eyes of a North Dakota restaurant worker

May 9th, 2020

by Michael Str!ke

We got the news just over two weeks ago. The state of North Dakota was going to reopen for business on May 1st. Restrictions and guidelines were promised by both the state and by our own management and owners of the restaurant I work for. I'm a kitchen worker forced to return to work during a global pandemic, and my story is probably like many others.

Like over 60 percent of Americans; I work paycheck to paycheck. I'm lucky enough to work at a place where for the most…

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