Thanks to the hundred or so of you who joined us live yesterday to listen to Dennis Saunders, a pastor in the Twin Cities, reflect on his experience the past few weeks.
Here is the quote from Jordan Daniel Wood I shared:
“I think the thing I will never understand is how anyone can be so entirely and blindly loyal to their preferred political party that they justify not only that party’s brazen opposition to the “rights” and “amendments” that such a party supposedly cherished, but even feel the need to justify the obvious, ongoing, *immediate* lies that such a party/administration tells.
I “lean left,” as you might have noticed, but I would never feel the slightest need to justify lies. For example, when Biden oversaw the first 18 months of Israel’s genocidal campaign to exterminate the Palestinians, I had no qualms whatsoever challenging his administration’s constant lies and false justifications. In fact, the most open criticism of Biden (and Obama’s drone wars, etc.) I’ve ever heard came not from any right-wing or self-styled “centrist” outlets, but from “leftist” (not liberal, mind) ones such as Democracy Now!
It is completely reasonable--indeed laudable--both to have your political preferences in general and to tell the truth in particular cases. You can say, for instance, that you “hate the libs” or whatever *and* that a cold-blooded execution of a legal observer who did absolutely nothing wrong, *is wrong*. There’s nothing shameful or contradictory in that at all. Precisely the contrary: it shows that you’re still a human being with a beating heart and a shred of integrity in your soul.”
And this is what one listener/viewer sent me just after we stopped recording— she’s not white:
“I forgot to login to the twin cities talk on Tuesday. I just heard it. To be honest, I’m not going to Texas for my mother-in-law’s funeral because I am waiting on my passport to get the real ID with the star (I call it the mark of the beast) ;). They are enforcing the valid ID to board flights starting February 1 and I would be returning from TX on the 2nd. In a normal US, I wouldn’t worry, but ICE’s profiling and indifference to the truth , makes me and my family very nervous. It is sad that I have am unable to confidently travel, even as a US citizen. As Dennis said, it is a real anxiety.”
