Focused Read in 3-4 minutes
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Important. Much of this piece was adapted by the author from her book ~ Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger ...
The entire article is about a 6-8 minute read and I am going to provide some key highlights you can read in a matter of a few minutes, followed by a link to the piece, because it is a book excerpt and it is a comprehensive piece of work providing incalculable context needed to add to the understanding where we’ve been and where we are that needs to be read where it originated from. (Clicks matter!)
In the spirit of Everyone Can Do Something, I encourage you to read it/to share it and to consider that to be a contribution to Democrats winning in November: #TheFutureIsFemale
(Also important: ( ⚠️ Trigger Alert ) Need help? Hotlines: Natl' Domestic Violence Hotline (800) 799-7233 Natl' Sexual Assault Hotline (800 656-4673) )
(Also important: ( ⚠️ Trigger Alert ) Need help? Hotlines: Natl' Domestic Violence Hotline (800) 799-7233 Natl' Sexual Assault Hotline (800 656-4673) )
“And You Thought Trump Voters Were Mad American women are furious — and our politics and culture will never be the same”
(By, Rebecca Traister)
“It’s not like women weren’t already aflame with fury.
September had brought handmaids to Washington...
Women dressed demurely...then leapt up and yelled: about life and death, health care, and abortion...Women sent 3,000 coat hangers to Senator Susan Collins...projected onto the City Hall building in Portland, Maine...a few dozen women — plus some men! — flooded into the office of...the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and started chanting and clapping: “Chuck Grassley! Come out! We’ve got some things to talk about!”
But this weekend, the view of the wrath and the stakes...got even clearer.
... a woman named Christine Blasey Ford identified herself as the person to have written a letter earlier this summer to Representative Anna Eshoo and Senator Dianne Feinstein, claiming that when she was a teenager, Brett Kavanaugh and a friend attempted to sexually assault her.
On Sunday, Ford went on the record in the Washington Post, describing what she remembered of the Supreme Court nominee pinning her to a bed during a party, trying to pull her clothes off.
“When she tried to scream,” the Post reported of Ford’s recollections, “he put his hand over her mouth.” “I thought he might inadvertently kill me,’” Ford told the paper, recalling also how she eventually got away. ...
With Ford’s story came the explicit acknowledgment of what all those handmaids and demonstrators had been working to convey for weeks:
that this fight has been against an administration with virtually no regard for women ...
... this is the way democracy is supposed to work — and the reason these men are getting so upset is that the force of female protest right now feels like it has the potential to shake our power structure to its core.
Twenty-seven years ago this fall, Anita Hill, came forward...Thomas was confirmed to the Court nonetheless, but a wave of angry women ran for office in the wake of Hill’s treatment by the committee, and her story was crucial to establishing “sexual harassment” as a form of gender discrimination.
The seeds sown during the Hill hearings have come into full flower in the past two years, as the #MeToo movement erupted...and angry women jumped into electoral contests around the country...It’s those women who’ve been winning primaries, toppling men who’ve occupied seats of power since God was a boy. ...It’s angry women who’ve staged teachers’ strikes, who’ve knocked powerful men off their perches at television networks and in the Senate; it’s often female elected officials who’ve linked arms with the angry masses.
The idealized vision of what this country might be was born of the virtuous, and sometimes chaotic, fury of the unrepresented...We call these events a revolution.
This is the anger of white men, of course. Their anger is revered, respected as the stimulus for necessary political change...their dissatisfactions are assumed to be grounded in reason — not the emotional muck of femininity.
... As nobly enraged as the Founders were at being taxed and policed by a government in which they had no voice or vote, they failed, we know, to establish a true representative democracy.
Their government was one in which a minority ruled. The few cleared the field of competition by subjugating the many — the enslaved, women — and then built their economic and political power on the labor of those they’d deprived of any say in civic or social life.
Instead of recognizing female fury as the righteous spark that alters what we see, what we know, we are typically encouraged to focus on feminine “peaceability” ...
Women’s anger certainly isn’t always progressive.
White women, who enjoy proximal power from their association with white men, have often served as the white patriarchy’s most eager foot soldiers. ...
So no, the point is not that the anger is always righteous; rather, that it is often potent...
and yet to this day, it continues to be written off as loudmouthed hysteria, or the dubious ravings of pussy-hatted suburbanites with itchy Etsy trigger fingers.
... Sometimes, it seems, the only ones able to see how powerful a movement is are those who are threatened by it...
Steve Bannon, of all people, has warned that “the anti-patriarchy movement” is aiming to “undo 10,000 years of recorded history … You watch. The time has come. Women are gonna take charge of society. And they couldn’t juxtapose a better villain than Trump. He is the patriarch. This is a [defining] moment in the culture. It’ll never be the same going forward.”
... This work of perfecting our union is often circular, always daunting; these efforts take time; they require our resilience and determination.
Rage helps drive them forward, through the bleakest periods.
What should have been sobering...was that women had been here before, yet we had to get here again. The process of change was going to be slow, hard, and often circular.
Nonetheless, so many women are prepared to dig in — even as it costs them their comforts and profoundly unsettles their lives, their very sense of self. ... "
You can read the article in full here
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"Opinion
We’re Measuring the Economy All Wrong"
The official statistics say that the financial crisis is behind us. It's not.
Ten years after the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the official economic statistics — the ones that fill news stories, television shows and presidential tweets — say that the American economy is fully recovered.
The unemployment rate is lower than it was before the financial crisis began. The stock market has soared. The total combined output of the American economy, also known as gross domestic product, has risen 20 percent since Lehman collapsed.
The crisis is over.
But, of course, it isn’t over.
The financial crisis remains the most influential event of the 21st century. It left millions of people — many of whom were already anxious about the economy — feeling much more anxious, if not downright angry.
Their frustration has helped create a threat to Western liberal democracy that would have been hard to imagine a decade ago. Far-right political parties are on the rise across Europe, and Britain is leaving the European Union. The United States elected a racist reality-television star who has thrown the presidency into chaos.
Look around, and you can see the lingering effects of the financial crisis just about everywhere — everywhere, that is, except in the most commonly cited economic statistics. So who are you going to believe: those statistics, or your own eyes?
Over the course of history, financial crises — and the long downturns that follow — have reordered American society in all sorts of ways. One of those ways happens to involve the statistics that the government collects. Crises have often highlighted the need for new measures of human well-being.
The unemployment rate was invented in the 1870s in response to concerns about mass joblessness after the Panic of 1873. The government’s measure of national output, now called G.D.P., began during the Great Depression. ...
Almost a century later, it is time for a new set of statistics. It’s time for measures that do a better job of capturing the realities of modern American life.
As a technical matter, the current batch of official numbers are perfectly accurate...The trouble is that a handful of statistics dominate the public conversation about the economy despite the fact that they provide a misleading portrait of people’s lives.
The main reason is inequality. A small, affluent segment of the population receives a large and growing share of the economy’s bounty.
It was true before Lehman Brothers collapsed on Sept. 15, 2008, and it has become even more so since.
As a result, statistics that sound as if they describe the broad American economy — like G.D.P. and the Dow Jones industrial average — end up mostly describing the experiences of the affluent.
The stock market, for example, has completely recovered from the financial crisis, and then some.
Stocks are now worth almost 60 percent more than when the crisis began in 2007, according to a inflation-adjusted measure from Moody’s Analytics.
But wealthy households own the bulk of stocks. Most Americans are much more dependent on their houses. That’s why the net worth of the median household is still about 20 percent lower than it was in early 2007.
When television commentators drone on about the Dow, they’re not talking about a good measure of most people’s wealth.
The unemployment rate has also become less meaningful than it once was.
In recent decades, the number of idle working-age adults has surged.
They are not working, not looking for work, not going to school and not taking care of children.
Many of them would like to work, but they can’t find a decent-paying job and have given up looking.
They are not counted in the official unemployment rate.
All the while, the federal government and much of the news media continue to act as if the same economic measures that made sense decades ago still make sense today.
Habit comes before accuracy.
Fortunately, there is a nascent movement to change that. A team of academic economists has begun publishing a version of G.D.P. that separates out the share of national income flowing to rich, middle class and poor.
For now, its data is published with a lag; the most recent available year is 2014. But the work is starting to receive attention from other academics and policy experts.
In the Senate, two Democratic senators, including Chuck Schumer, the party leader, have introduced a bill that would direct the federal government to publish a version of the same data series.
Heather Boushey, who runs the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, told me that it could be the most important change in economic data collection in decades.
And there is no reason that data reform needs to be limited to G.D.P. The Labor Department could change the monthly jobs report to give more attention to other unemployment numbers. It could also provide more data on wages, rather than only broad averages. The Federal Reserve, for its part, could publish quarterly estimates of household wealth by economic class.
... Over time, they can subtly shift the way that the country talks about the economy.
... the government should not focus on creating wholly new statistics. It should instead change and expand the ones that are already followed closely. Doing so could force the media and policymakers to talk about economic well-being at the same time that they are talking about economic indicators.
There is no mystery about what a better set of indicators would look like. For the most part, the indicators already exist. They tend to be obscure, however.
... These numbers include: the overall share of working-age adults who are actually working; pay at different points on the income distribution; and the same sort of distribution for net worth (which includes stock holdings, home values and other assets and debts).
The whole point of statistics is to describe reality. When a statistic no longer does so, it’s time to find a new one — not to come up with a convoluted rationale that tries to twist reality to fit the statistic.
The notion that our most prominent economic indicators are problematic has been around for a long time...Most famously, Robert F. Kennedy liked to say during his 1968 presidential campaign that G.D.P. measured everything “except that which makes life worthwhile.” ... "
Focused Monthly Inspiration
During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act. ~ George Orwell
( #its2018now )
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→ Direct sources & resources for Democrats:
* ( Personal favored and most informative follows are also shared here with the understanding that readers will always apply their own critical thinking to any information provided anywhere by anyone. #StrongerTogether does not share sources of information lightly but -- no one is perfect! -- so always #DistrustAndVerify -- even if it's me. I am using a star rating that is strictly based on my situational experience with the work of the media personality specifically in relation to issues of interest to me. )
The Democratic Party Website
Also, NOT exactly a Democratic Party specific source under a GOP majority but a good place for to hear and to watch speeches & hearings directly C-SPAN
Democratic National Committee's Team Blue!
"The Blue Wave 
🌊 won't happen unless we all pitch in to help elect Democrats across the country. We've partnered with a number of organizations to make sure we're covering ground in every single community 👣. Join Team Blue to volunteer to get out the vote 
🗳️ in your community..."
🌊 won't happen unless we all pitch in to help elect Democrats across the country. We've partnered with a number of organizations to make sure we're covering ground in every single community 👣. Join Team Blue to volunteer to get out the vote 🗳️ in your community..."
You can check out opportunities to volunteer here
→ Some of my favorite, most active organizations -- some existing & some developing to elect Democrats:
Born from conversations between Governor Howard Dean and Secretary Hillary Clinton in the aftermath of the 2016 election, Onward Together was established to lend support to leaders — particularly young leaders — kicking off projects and founding new organizations to fight for our shared progressive values. here
An "organizing project that advocates for the agenda of former U.S. President Barack Obama" here
( * A current story on Organizing For Action )
Since #StandOnEveryCorner has grown, it’s become a stand by all of us to protect our democracy from corruption and treason...A stand not at your State Capitol, but in your own backyard. Not once every few months, but as often as you can here
→ Fact checking organizations courtesy of the Society of Professional Journalists
in alphabetical order...
→ Some of my favorite, most informative
follows on Twitter include:
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ US Intelligence | Author | Navy Senior Chief | NBC/MSNBC
⭐⭐⭐ Federal Government Operations | Vanity Fair | Newsweek | MSNBC Contributor | Author
⭐⭐⭐⭐ Voting Rights/Voter Suppression | Author | Mother Jones
→ Some of my favorite, highly credible media -- at the moment:
📰📰📰 Mother Jones
📰📰📰📰 The Washington Post
→ Some of my favorite Talking Heads -- at the moment -- and their Twitter handles:
→ Some of my favorite media/panelists -- at the moment -- and their Twitter handles:
✅✅✅✅ Jennifer Rubin Conservative blogger at @ WashingtonPost's Right Turn,MSNBC contributor
✅✅✅ Natasha Bertrand Staff writer @ The Atlantic covering national security & the
intel community. @ NBCNews/@ MSNBC contributor
→ Some of my favorite Democrat Party Leaders to follow on Twitter, not in elected office but proving knowledge & experience are positives & not negatives are:
Former First Lady Michelle Obama
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Former Labor Secretary/Today's DNC Chair Tom Perez
Note: I rarely get involved in primary races -- outside of those in my own area and unless there is a glaring reason that can not be ignored, I support Democratic Party nominees in general elections. I don't support bashing Democrats.
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(Linked) "...is our 2016 platform...a declaration of how we plan to move America forward. Democrats believe that cooperation is better than conflict, unity is better than division, empowerment is better than resentment, and bridges are better than walls.
It’s a simple but powerful idea: We are stronger together."
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Owned, Created and Curated by Gail Mountain, this blog is often gently edited and/or excerpted for quick reading, with occasional personal commentary in the form of the written word and/or in the form of emphasis noted. Network For #StrongerTogether ! is not affiliated with The Democratic Party in any capacity. This is an independent blog and the hope is you will, at a glance, learn more about the Party and you will, with a click or two, also take action on its behalf as it is provided!
( You can find me on Twitter
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at https://www.facebook.com/ProgressDems/)
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See the League of Women Voters website:
Vote411 here
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...for Networking for Democrats today!
g. (Unapologetic Democrat)
✊ Resisting "Fake News"
g. (Unapologetic Democrat)
✊ Resisting "Fake News"
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