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¿QUIEN ES MICHAEL MOORE, EL CINEASTA QUE CADA SEMANA NOS COMPARTE SUS CONTRIBUCIONES EDITORIALES?

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Michael Francis Moorees un cineasta, documentalista y escritor estadounidense, conocido por su postura progresistay su visión crítica hacia la globalizaciòn, las grandes corporaciones, la violencia armada, la invasiòn de Irak Iraky de otros países y las políticas del gobierno de George W. Bushy sus antecesores así como también sus sucesores
 

Moore nació en Flint, Míchigan,​ hijo de Veronica Moore, una secretaria, y Frank Moore, trabajador de una línea de ensamblaje de automóviles.

Durante su infancia, ganó en un torneo de la Asociaciòn Nacional del Rifle. Cuando ya era adulto, se convirtió en un miembro vitalicio de esta organización. Como declara él mismo, se convirtió en miembro vitalicio con el fin de destituir por voto al presidente de la Asociación Nacional del Rifle, con el apoyo de muchos nuevos miembros con la misma opinión que él (es decir en contra de las armas), quienes esperaba convencer a ingresar. 

Sin embargo, no llevó a la práctica ese plan.

Durante su infancia, la ciudad de

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Flintera una de las muchas fábricas de General Motors, donde sus padres y abuelos trabajaron. Su tío fue uno de los fundadores del sindicato de trabajadores de United Automobile Workersy participó en la huelga conocida como "Flint Sit-Down Strike". 

Moore ha descrito a sus padres como "demócratas catòlicos Irlandeses, básicamente buenas personas liberales."

Moore fue educado en la religión catòlicay asistió a la escuela primaria St. John's Elementary School, y a los catorce años estuvo en un seminario diocesano.​Realizó sus estudios secundarios en Davison High School, donde fue activo tanto en las obras de teatro como en los concursos de debates,​ graduándose en 1972.

Màs,AQUI, por Wikipedia.

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On the Second Anniversary of Defeating the Fascists and Supremacists (and President Benedict Trump)

Friends,

Two years ago today, we defeated an attempted coup in our country. The attack by domestic terrorists, operating on the orders of a treasonous defeated president, attacked our Capitol and Congress with brutal violence. People died. 535 Americans elected to represent us were forced to run for their lives.

This violent coup was beaten back after hours of pleas to the White House for help. May Trump rot in prison some day for this.

Hours later on January 6, 2021, the elected representatives returned to finish their duty to certify the election of Joe Biden. But 147 of them, all Republicans, re-entered the building that night on January 6th to complete their coup — not with violence, but with their votes. 147 of them voted to overturn the 2020 presidential election and thus overthrow the government. An act of sedition.

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution says that any member of the U.S. Congress or the executive branch who gives aid and comfort to any insurrectionists or those who rebel against the U.S. government, is not only to be removed from Congress, they are prohibited from ever holding any office again.

The 118 of them who were reelected to the House were supposed to have been sworn in on Tuesday. But with no Speaker, no one has been sworn in. So the traitors have not taken their seats in the new Congress! One cause of joy that the Republican circus this week has unexpectedly given us.

And one other positive to remember — two years ago today, while those 147 House and Senate members chose to join the attempted coup, nearly 400 House members and Senators chose to stand up to Trump and defeat the insurrection. That’s 73% of Congress who sided with us, the People, and voted to give final certification of the election of Joe Biden.

All is not yet lost. Rise out of the despair. We are the majority. Our actions today will hopefully guarantee a better future, Justice for those to whom it’s been denied, and a possible hope for the planet.

Peace to all today on this 12th day of Christmas, when, as the legend goes, three wise men of color arrived in Bethlehem for a baby shower in a stable of animals, thinking maybe they should show up because perhaps there was someone there who would grow up to preach that the most important mission for each of us is love — love of oneself, love of your neighbors, and the hardest — love of one’s enemies.

Michael Moore

P. S. I will send you Episode 10 of “Blue Dots in a Red Sea” later today. Onward!

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Democracy’s Day of Decision

The Traitors Are Back

     
Within hours, sometime tomorrow/today morning (Tuesday, January 3rd), 121 reelected members of Congress (including 2 promoted to the Senate) who participated in the attempted coup of January 6th by voting in the House and Senate to overturn the 2020 election — i.e., overthrow the elected government — will raise their hand and take the same oath they took three days before they voted to give the insurrections what they wanted in 2021. 

This should not happen. I’m asking you to join me in calling your representatives on Capitol Hill and insisting that those members of Congress who sought to block President Biden from entering the White House and who provided aid and comfort to the domestic terrorists, that they be constitutionally prohibited from taking a seat in this new session of Congress. 

Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution is very clear. It says any sworn official of the government who joins in an insurrection or rebellion or provides aid and comfort to them is not allowed to hold any office in the country. 

On this poster I created are the list of names and the mug shots of those who voted to object to the legal vote counts of Arizona and Pennsylvania on the night of the insurrection. At that point, the other 73% of Congress put their foot down and voted to certify that Joe Biden was the president of the United States. 

Please join me in calling your Representative immediately to object to seating insurrectionists. 

202-224-3121

If your Representative was one of the insurrectionists, please ask him/her to not take the oath and resign. 

Take a moment and let history record your objection. 

202-224-3121

Thank you. 

Michael Moore
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We Are the Majority in 2023.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Welcome to 2023 my friends!

On this traditional day of rest and reckoning and planning for the new year ahead, I invite you to join me in my list of New Year’s resolutions — all of them intended to increase the level of Democracy in the United States (or wherever you may live).

These resolutions are even more needed in towns and counties and states currently controlled by election-deniers and supporters of the coup attempt two years ago this week. We call them “red states” or red areas of the country. They are also noted by their drift toward fascism, their belief in white privilege and supremacy, their sick fetish and desire to control women’s reproductive organs, their denial that the Earth is in the middle of an environmental catastrophe, and their insistence that students not be taught the history of American genocide, slavery, and the fact that not all of us are heterosexuals. If you live under the yoke of this in a red state, that is why I’m recording and sending you a mini-podcast each day until this Friday — to help you change the course of history. This is your moment. We electro-shocked the Republicans on November 8th and now, not to kick them while they’re down — but, yes, actually, in fact, to kick them while they’re down (no kicking, no violence, please — it’s more like we just need to restrain them, hold their bigotry and misogyny down so we can breathe). 

Gerrymandering, the Electoral College, and the Filibuster have no place in a democracy and must be eliminated. Red states will remain red as long as the right wing draws the maps and “elects” candidates who lose the popular vote.

Have a listen to this Rumble episode #7 of “Blue Dots in a Red Sea” for my list of 10 things we must do to bring true Democracy to this country.

— Mike

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One by one, the wheels come off the clown car in the Best Comedy of the decade. 

Friends —

On the first day of the 118th Congress, in a performance not witnessed by this nation in nearly 170 years, the House Republicans chose to commit a mass murder-suicide of their last vestige of electoral political power, putting on a humiliating show to the world, and offering massive relief to all who worried about the damage they might do to the USA over the next two years. 

We learned yesterday that the only true destruction these MAGA-heads are capable of now is taking their own running leap off the cliff of the Capitol Dome. The irony that these insurrectionist-loving traitors would, just two years later, conduct an actual uprising against themselves is pure, sweet Justice.

Please give a listen to this episode of my Rumble podcast! I provide play-by-play review of this mad, insane day, brought to us live on C-SPAN, with the “losing” party in the House looking like the winners, running the show, providing the laugh track and winning every ballot with the most votes going to Democrat Hakeem Jeffries for Speaker of the House.

Clowns may look scary, but sleep safe tonight America, this batch of Bozos is incapable of doing much harm to anyone other than themselves. 

Listen. Enjoy! Please share. 

All my best,

Michael Moore

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Friends,

This week the world lost an incredible force of good, the godmother of the modern documentary, Julia Reichert, whose groundbreaking work inspired countless filmmakers that followed — including me, at 17 years old, in 1971, when I drove my parents’ car to Ann Arbor to watch her first film, Growing Up Female, a subversive feminist documentary, in an auditorium on the University of Michigan campus. Years later we became friends, and today on Rumble, I pay tribute to Julia. 

Also, fresh off the United States Men’s soccer team’s loss in the 2022 World Cup, I share my take on the world’s game of football, and give one final plea to Rumble listeners to Get Out the Vote for Senator Ralph Warnock before the final midterm runoff election in Georgia this Tuesday.

Please listen, and share.

— Mike
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Friends,

Last night, on November 29, 2022, a federal jury in Washington, D.C., found that indeed there was an actual conspiracy to commit sedition — the overthrow of our democratically-elected government — by a number of white male American citizens in the weeks leading up to the January 6th violent insurrection that ransacked the Capitol and sent 535 members of Congress and the lackey vice-president, plus their staffs, fleeing for their lives. 

But it turns out the five Americans convicted of various offenses did not include their ringleader, Donald John Trump. 

Until that happens, Justice has not happened. 

In this episode of Rumble with Michael Moore, I probe the inner workings of the most heinous sedition in this nation’s history and what we need to do to have Trump finally pay for his crimes. 

— Mike

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

On today’s episode of Rumble, I share my special Thanksgiving Day message to all I am grateful for.

— Mike

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Dancing for joy!

Friends,

It’s been over a week since the 2022 U.S. midterm elections and victory results keep pouring in across all 50 states. I have been on a high for the past 8 days celebrating our Blue Wall that stopped what the pundits, pollsters, and politicians claimed would be a Republican “red wave.”

On this episode of Rumble with Michael Moore, I spend some time debriefing with Rumble listeners, and share Tsunami #42 in my own voice. I also have a favor to ask you…

Hope you enjoy it.

— Mike

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #42

Can you bring yourself to say we will win the House?

     

It’s hard, isn’t it, to believe in ourselves? Especially when you’ve spent the past few months feeling politically hopeless and trying not to believe the “predictions” shoved down our throats that we are all going to drown in a Trumpian Red Wave of election deniers and right wing nutters. And so millions of you — good people, liberals, lefties, Democrats, Montessori parents — sink into a despair, knowing in your heart of hearts we are doomed. Between Biden’s low approval ratings, the “record high“ inflation, and the media telling us over and over how the first midterm election of a new president is usually a slaughter (Obama lost 63 House seats in his first midterm), most liberal voters simply gave in to the inevitable. 

So I stepped in to help turn that around. Every day for six weeks I wrote to you, my Substack subscribers and social media followers. I sent you a daily email to give you hard data and facts (plus my own Midwestern common sense) as to why there would be no Republican landslide and that Trump would never rule America again. I asked only that you get five others to vote with you — and that you start believing in yourselves, in us, and in our wonderful, crazy country where there are millions more of us than there are of the haters and the Democracy destroyers. A country still unfinished, and my insistence that we do just that: Finish it. Make it right. And guarantee that everyone has a seat at the table and a slice of the pie. 

Many of you wrote me with gratitude, telling me of the hard work you were doing to get out the vote. It lifted my spirits (which was much appreciated as I had come down with Covid on the fourth day of these “Midterm Tsunamis of Truth”, half of them written while lying in bed and trying to remember my middle name).

And then came our unexpected success on Tuesday — unexpected only by those who promoted the false narrative of a Republican landslide — but, sadly, unexpected also by all those who bought into that false narrative, namely depressed Democrats. 

Many of you wrote me this week to apologize for not believing me because I saw instead a Blue Tsunami Wall that would protect us. Well, no apologies are necessary. I know how it is to be swamped by what the Times and NPR and the Wall Street Journal and a hundred pundits are throwing at you. And, without thinking, how people start repeating what David Brooks is saying! What FiveThirtyEight is saying! What their smart friend is saying. You hand your critical thinking mind over to them without even thinking about it. 

And yet you never think to ask, “Why am I not hearing the opposing side to this narrative? Is there not a single person who believes the Democrats are going to resist history, make history, that the polling is wrong, that “approval ratings” are anachronistic and irrelevant… and wrong? That we live in a very new America where the younger generation is on fire, where women have had it up to here, where the calendar is screaming at us that we are just 20 years away from the U.S. no longer being a “white” country. A country where white people will be the minority by 2042.Those knucklehead white supremacists know it! What do you think the January 6th insurrection was really about? I mean if Herschel Walker is now their only hope, jeez they gotta be feeling just awful. What would great-great-Confederate grandpappy say about all this?

So, yes, I have been howling these facts out to the wind, and yet I could not find a single commentator on TV or in journalism who would break from the herd and agree with me that the whole stinking media has it all wrong and that the Democrats are going to do better than fine, and that the Republicans are about to have their ass handed to them. 

During the six weeks leading up to the election, no newspaper, no magazine, no TV network or armed forces wire service sought either to report on my facts and data about “no red wave is coming” — or do their own reporting to tell the public that a fantasy narrative has been concocted to depress the Democratic vote. I’m on TV a lot. I’m always being asked to come on TV to join the discussion. But not during the midterms. They didn’t want to even consider what I was saying. Other than Bill Maher (who didn’t agree with my analysis but thought I should be heard), Salon, and The Guardian newspaper would let me put forth the possibility that the red wave was in fact a red herring.  

Is it the ball cap? The Supercuts haircut? The wardrobe I loaned to John Fetterman?

In the final days before November 8th, three decent, brave non-primetime souls on MSNBC — the longtime pro Alex Witt, the rapper/lawyer Ari Melber and the indefatigable Joy Reid — gave me a voice. Viewers were shocked to hear someone say we on the left were not only going to keep the Senate, we were going to pick up a seat or two. That not only were the Republicans not going to clobber us in the House with 30 to 50 new seats, they might be in for an upset because it’s gonna be so dang close. And Trump’s mob of election-denying candidates were going to go down in flames. There would be record numbers of young voters, and women were on a rampage over the abolishment of Roe. The sword of vengeance would be theirs. 

Of all of the above glorious victories we attained on Tuesday, my favorite was this: 

In nearly every state, women voters outnumbered the men. And young voters delivered another record turnout — second highest in nearly three decades. 

Women and youth made Democrats the real winners.

As I came out of the voting booth on Tuesday, an elderly woman came up to me. The color of her eyes was steel. 

“Women,” she said to me, “we are ruthless. And when we are ruthless, men who cause harm to us, to our children, never see us coming. And then it’s too late. This, this what the Court did, now you will see what I mean by ruthless.” Chills. Because she meant it. Thrilled, because I believed her. 

In most states, women voters on Tuesday vastly outnumbered the men (in a few of them by 55% to 45%!).  Guys — what did you think was going to happen after women were once again reminded that they can just go f**k themselves as they were told to do by the Supreme priests in black robes on June 24th of this year? If you’re afraid of 2042 when it comes to race, get your male lug head ready to wrap itself around this fact: By 2028-2032, women will make up half of Congress; good luck finding a male doctor or male lawyer under 45 (the majority of all medical and law students today are women); and there will be a woman in the White House — and she won’t invade Iraq, won’t impose cruelty and suffering on the poor, the immigrant or the single mother; a president who will embrace the oppressed and welcome all who do the shit work none of us would ever do. From them she will find America’s next new leaders and geniuses. 

So I need to close by asking all of you a favor. After the election on Wednesday, as I had for weeks, I tried to assure you that we not only are going to win the Senate seats in Nevada, Arizona and the Georgia runoff on December 6th, I think we are going to hold the House! Yet even after I shared with you 40 Tsunami Truths, still, until even this very moment that you’re reading this, you are sick to your stomach with the belief that of course we will lose the House. 

So let me make this simple observation — when in your American lifetime have they not called who has won the House SIX FRIGGIN’ DAYS AFTER THE POLLS HAVE CLOSED? Never! So what do you think is taking so long?  I’ll tell you what I think: It’s because the count is very, very, very close — so close that the Democrats have smoked this election, and now they are just a seat or two away from owning the whole damn show in DC! 

Can you handle that? Can you finally please stop always thinking the worst and that the forces of evil will triumph? Even if we don’t win, can you reach into yourself and at least “believe” we are going to win the House? Because our next victory starts there, inside of you. That’s one thing I admire about the other side — they believe so deeply in everything they believe in. They believe the earth was made in just 6 days. They believe Jesus walked on water. It doesn’t matter that it makes no sense or that there was no need for him to do that because he was a perfectly good swimmer. They believe Trump is a prophet sent to us from God to get rid of the IRS.  

They win so much because they’ve got God.  

We have Noam Chomsky. That’s not a fair fight. 

So will you take a moment and say these 10 words out loud for me, right now:

There are more of us than there are of them.  

And…

We will Hold the House!

Sure, it may not happen by a vote or two — but that’s not the point! The point is we’ve brought the Republicans trembling to their knees tonight. They can’t believe this has happened to them. They will not be able to collect themselves into a fighting force. They will fight each other. We will peel away a few of them at a time when we need their votes. Which Republican representative who won by only 40 votes is going to dare vote NO on the Violence Against Women Act? Or expanding Medicare for their parents? 

Here’s a fact the pundits don’t quote:

In this current session of Congress, elected in 2020, 9 Republicans and 7 Democrats never even lasted until the end of this term! Some died. Some quit. Usually one or two are indicted. Some went out for a pack of smokes and never came back. Special elections had to be held to fill their seats. How do we now have a Democrat representing Alaska in the House? Because Republican Congressman Don Young died this year, and in the special election to replace him, Democrat Mary Peltola was elected. When the first two Republicans in this new session are gone, we’ll be ready to fly into action and clean up. One way or the other, the House will be ours. 

But what do I know?

Spirits up everyone! Ride the wave!

P.S. Here’s a song for the end of this Veteran’s Day weekend. It’s from P!nk and her dad. He wrote it after he returned from the Vietnam War. It’s the first song she learned to sing. Enjoy. 

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #41

We Killed the Red Wave

     

It’s 6am and I haven’t gone to bed. The headlines are already popping up on my screen:

“No Signs of ‘Red Wave’ as Race for Congress Remains Tight” (New York Times)

“Congress hangs in balance as Democrats defy expectations” (Washington Post)

“‘Red wave’ fails to materialise as Fetterman clinches crucial Senate seat for Democrats” (The Guardian)

“Control of Congress Remains at Stake as Democrats Fend Off Anticipated ‘Red Wave’” (The Wall Street Journal)

I’ve checked my inbox and so many of you have written to me through the night. So many of you who worked hard over these last months to prevent the bloodbath. A fascist takeover by a full slate of election deniers and voting suppressors. 

And now we know there will be no bloodbath. Not today. And it’s because we and millions of others erected a force field around the haters and bigots to stop them in their tracks. And that is what has happened. Sometimes you have to lose a battle or two in order to win the war. 

I love how you all knew that if for some reason we couldn’t create a blue tsunami on Election Day, our second best choice was to make sure there would be no red wave.

And that is where we are at as America wakes up on The Day After. As Election Day 2022 came to an end, the Republicans last night were in a state of shock as they found themselves, at least for now, in control of neither the House nor the Senate! They were unable to throw a single Democrat out of the United States Senate. In fact just the opposite happened — the Democrats were able to flip control of their Pennsylvania Senate seat from a Republican to a Democrat. In stunned disbelief, the Democrats instantly went from a 50-50 Senate to a 51-49 Senate in their favor. Georgia and Nevada are still too close to call, but the Democrat in Georgia holds a small lead, and the Democrat in Nevada has played see-saw all night with the Republican. To be clear, they’ll be counting these votes for days, if not weeks, and so it’s anybody’s guess what could happen.

As for the House, you need 218 seats to hold a majority, to be able to pass (or defeat) a bill. Right now they are 20 seats short of that and that is why none of the networks nor the AP nor the New York Times have called the House for either Party. 

The looks on the faces of Fox News are glum. This was not what they — or we — have been told for months would happen. Back in the spring, Republican leadership predicted that the Trump Party would pick up nearly 60 seats in the House. It looks like they’ll be lucky to get 10. Commentators on Fox called it a “disaster.” One scenario suggests they could end up with just a one vote majority. 

“The real winner tonight” said one Republican, “is Joe Biden. He’s got a big smile on his face right now.”

There was so much heartening news coming out of last night. Abortion rights measures passing in Vermont, California, Michigan, and Kentucky — with Montana poised to follow suit. Marijuana was made legal in Maryland and Missouri. Record midterm turnouts by young people occurred in many states. 

I will go into more detail when we next talk (after more votes are tabulated). For now, let me just say this:

We were lied to for months by the pundits and pollsters and the media. Voters had not “moved on” from the Supreme Court’s decision to debase and humiliate women by taking federal control over their reproductive organs. Crime was not at the forefront of the voters “simple” minds. Neither was the price of milk. It was their Democracy that they came to fight for yesterday. And because of that drive, we live to fight, and hope, for another day…

Once again, massive thanks to all of you for helping all of us build a Blue Wall that stopped an ugly red wave.

I’ll speak to y’all later. 

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #41

We win either way today because love and kindness always wins out over hate and greed. Sometimes it takes a while. And when we win today (or tomorrow or 2024) we will fight to better the lives of everyone — including and especially the lives of those burdened with hate and confusion over what it should mean to be an American. Our love and compassion — and the ability to have a Political Party that knows how to present a cogent, compelling and convincing message — is how we will heal the politically despondent, those who have given up and are sadly staying home today, those who’ve been easily tricked into voting against their own best interests, and those who are succumbed with a mindless fear of “the other” who are going to hurt them or take what their white Christian leaders have promised them is theirs.

And if we “lose,” as the media predicts — an outcome they will have willed into existence by convincing just enough Americans that the price of a gallon of gas is more important than the human rights of an entire gender and more important than the actual Democracy itself — then we will live to fight another day. A lie has a short shelf life when exposed to the resounding Truth. There will always be more of us than them, so let’s just figure out how to truly activate and embrace both that majority and the 80 million who are nonvoters. One way to do that is to follow through on our promises: Tax the rich, support the working class and their families, all women are equals, and we create a new generation of civically-engaged critical thinkers who read and act and love.

I woke up today in good spirits, thoughtful of the future,  but in need of a good laugh and a small dose of humanity. So, for this 40th Tsunami Truth, I thought I’d share with you a brief collection of cartoons, memes, greater truths and a child who plays her accordion for a field of cows. I hope this helps you get through the high anxiety of this day, brings calm to your soul, and real hope for what lies ahead. 

Oh — and if you haven’t voted yet, there’s still time! Even if you are not registered, in 19 states plus D.C. you can still register in-person AND vote today at the polls. Here’s the list: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Washington D.C., Hawaii, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont, Washington, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. And here’s where to find your polling place. 

And now for Mike’s Election Day Funny (and not so funny) Pages! Enjoy. 

We’ll talk tonight…

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Mike's Midterm Tsunami Truth #39

Roevember Election Day Mixtape

The Day has arrived. The verdict will soon be rendered. I have only one vote. So do you. But all of us together decide where we want the country to go. 

I’ve been counting on the vast majority with whom I share this land, the ones who believe in the human rights of women, who believe that the human species is in deep environmental danger, who believe the rich, by getting richer, have made life harder for everyone else — I believe we, together, are going to turn this all around. Beginning today. Right?

To celebrate this day, I’ve made a playlist, a mixtape of special music for a special day. Something to listen to while in line at your polling place. Or listen to it tonight as you fall asleep. Or if you’ve already voted, just put it in your ears or on your sound system and let ‘er rip all day long. Feel good. Be proud of what you’ve done. Enjoy this moment. Have a virtual dance with me! Get ready for the future. There is much to do. 

But today, sing a song, let out a yell, wear mismatched socks and share a simple kindness with someone. VOTE if you haven’t already! I’ll be at my polling location this afternoon. I will party with all of you tonight, no matter the outcome. We can’t be stopped now. 

Enjoy the tunes! 

LISTEN NOW · 2:44:30

TRACK LIST:

00:00:00 Democracy — Leonard Cohen

00:07:04 Break My Soul — Beyoncé

00:11:35 People Have The Power — Patti Smith

00:16:35 The Times They Are A-Changin’ — Michael Moore

00:20:16 New Americana — Halsey

00:24:11 We Shall Overcome — Bruce Springsteen

00:28:57 Wasteland of the Free — Iris DeMent

00:34:07 Before The Deluge — Jackson Browne

00:40:01 America — Simon & Garfunkel

00:43:28 All You Fascists — Billy Bragg and Wilco

00:46:08 The Sound Of Silence — Disturbed

00:50:16 We Belong — Pat Benatar

00:53:53 Where Is The Love? — The Black Eyed Peas

00:58:01 American Tune — Paul Simon

01:01:41 Beyond The Sea — Bobby Darin

01:04:32 American Saturday Night — Brad Paisley

01:09:01 Better Days — The Goo Goo Dolls

01:12:27 Star Spangled Banner — Jimi Hendrix

01:16:12 American Idiot — Green Day

01:19:06 American Life — Madonna

01:22:56 Better World A-Comin’ — Woody Guthrie

01:26:00 Put On A Happy Face — Dick Van Dyke & Janet Leigh

01:29:33 Not Ready To Make Nice — The Chicks

01:33:23 Dog Days Are Over — Florence + The Machine

01:37:01 I’ve Seen All Good People — Yes

01:43:35 Under Pressure — Queen & David Bowie

01:47:29 You’re Not Alone — Allison Russell (feat. Brandi Carlile)

01:52:33 The Ghost of Tom Joad — Bruce Springsteen & Tom Morello

02:01:11 Talkin’ Bout a Revolution — Tracy Chapman

02:03:44 Try — P!nk

02:07:48 President — Wyclef Jean

02:11:23 All Along The Watchtower — The Jimi Hendrix Experience

02:15:21 Oh Very Young — Cat Stevens

02:17:51 The Greatest — Sia

02:21:10 We Got the Beat — The Go Go’s

02:23:40 Killing In the Name — Rage Against The Machine

02:28:53 F**k You — Lily Allen

02:32:25 We Can Be Together — Jefferson Airplane

02:38:10 About Damn Time — Lizzo

02:41:21 Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life — Eric Idle & Monty Python

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #38

The Day After the Blue Tsunami

It is now less than 29 hours until the polls open. 

Whose heart didn’t just skip a beat reading that sentence! This is it my friends! Everything and anything that we do in these next 30+ hours will decide the fate and the future of this unfinished Democracy. 

Tens of millions of our fellow Americans would prefer we not finish it. I understand. For them, the country has become too black and brown, too many women “taking over,” too many languages from the huddled masses they don’t understand, too many educated people, too much compassion for the have-nots, the disabled and the families who can’t afford a Christmas tree. Plus, TV shows got smarter, sports got dumber and spaghetti in a can just doesn’t seem to taste right anymore.

If you think you are scared of us losing on Tuesday, imagine what it feels like for our not-so-loyal opposition who are now forced to live in a country where the majority no longer go to church, the majority of adults are no longer married, the majority no longer have a gun in the house, the vast majority support nondiscrimination laws for the LGBTQ+ community, and the vast, vast majority are not haters, bigots, climate denierselection deniers or drive a General Motors car. Think of how scared they are of Tuesday! 

So come with me on a brief but joyful jaunt down the yellow brick road to “The Day After the Blue Tsunami” to see what our future could look like after we defeat the insurrectionist-loving Republicans. (Spoiler Alert: It looks a lot like the America we’ve always wished we had — and now will. Spoiler Alert #2: This peek at our future will only become a reality if we force the elected Democrats to give us the country they’ve promised us. As we know all too well, they will need our guidance and assistance.)

Sometime between Tuesday night at 11pm ET and Friday morning we will know the outcome of the Midterm election. And if it goes the way it should go, then we will have the chance to create a different America in the next two years. By holding the House and hopefully picking up 2 new seats in the Senate (to counter any blockage from Manchin and Sinema), then we will have a clear shot at improving so many things which need our attention. 

So, if you will, sit back, close your eyes and imagine it’s sometime in 2023. It’s the America we’ve long hoped for. The New USA — brought to you by the libs, the teachers union, critical race thinkers and the makers of classroom kitty litter…

The year of 2023 began with the first day of the new Congress on January 3, 2023.  The new 53-majority Democratic Senate voted to eliminate the filibuster. From that day forward, President Biden and the Democratic Congress were able to pass a long list of legislation to make life better for working families, the Earth in general and the Democracy specifically. With the filibuster gone, there was no Republican interference.

Also on Day 1, the Dems needed to make two strong statements — and they did, by taking these actions: 

·         They passed a series of election reform bills so that voting is now easier — and voter suppression is against the law. Gerrymandering was also outlawed. This should prevent the next Trump from trying to upend our election system. And Congress began the process to eliminate the Electoral College!

·         No one works for less than $25 an hour any longer. All workers now get “paid family leave time” when needed. All workers also enjoy a minimum of 4 weeks paid vacation every year. Workers are encouraged to join unions that will negotiate and advocate for them. 

·         ObamaCare is now “USA Universal Care” — a system of free health insurance for all. No one ever has to pull out their wallet again at the doctor’s office or at the hospital. It is fully funded by taxing employers the way they were always taxed for Medicare. By eliminating the private profit-making insurance companies, profit and overhead costs have been brought down by at least 25%. Finally, thanks to Congress instituting the proposal from National Nurses United to charge a penny tax on all shares traded each day on Wall Street, billions have been raised to cover USA Universal Care. By learning from the Canadian system, no American now is ever denied care. There are no co-pays, no deductibles. One popular improvement to the American system, unlike the Canadians and British, the U.S. covers mental and dental care. By shifting the focus to health prevention, costs have been brought way down — and more importantly, less people are getting sick for less periods of time. Who knew what a 30-min walk would do!

·         Now that the required 38 states have passed the Equal Rights Amendment for women, it has finally been placed in the United States Constitution! That took long enough! (Weren’t there women on the Mayflower?)

·         As soon as the 535 members of Congress got their locker keys and cafeteria passes, they got right to codifying the original Roe v. Wade into a nationwide law making abortion legal in all states and territories, keeping all birth control legal and easily available — and authorizing research on a male birth control pill, plus making vasectomies free and easy to obtain. 

·         The government is now funding free pre-K for 3 and 4-year-olds. Community college and vocational school are also now free. 

·         The rich are finally paying more in taxes. This seems to have made all the hard-working people and parents in the country feel better. Capping the out-of-control prices of the cost of homes also helped. Hollywood got back to making movies but seemed in some cases to have forgotten how to make a great one. People wanted comedies so there were more of those. The richest man in the world bought Twitter and in the first week fired half of all the company’s employees. By email. 

Nonetheless, we were all so relieved that the crazy Trumpsters not only lost the election, many of them bought a large swath of land in Utah and moved there, waiting to be beamed up by JFK, Jr. where he was expected to take them to one of Jupiter’s moons where Sean Hannity would guide them and rule with wit and compassion. Trump had already built a signature golf course there on Ganymede, and even had the gravesites mapped out for his other two wives, his five kids and Gary Busey. 

We didn’t really miss any of them. We liked not having to be inundated with the stress of feeling like our world was going to fall apart any minute. Soon, we could no longer remember what MAGA stood for. Which was a good thing. 

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #37

It Can’t Happen Here

In the slight, minuscule off-chance that most of you are unable to bring 5 nonvoters with you to the polls and thus allow the Republicans to win on Tuesday, let me lay out an optimistic view of what they will attempt to do once they ransack our Capitol a second time. 

But let me first say that there is NO reason why we should lose! There are 20 million more of us! The majority of Americans agree with us on nearly every issue, from climate to abortion to a living wage to expanding universal health care to gun control to paid family leave. 70% of eligible voters are women, people of color, or between the ages of 18-35 — or some combination of these three. THIS is the base of the Democratic electorate. The Democrats, who have won the popular vote in every presidential election but one since Bush the First in 1988. 

So how could we lose? There’s only ONE way that could happen — we, the vast majority, don’t show up. We, the majority, didn’t make sure that everyone we know voted. That we, the majority, took our majority for granted, didn’t fight as hard as we could, sinking into our despair because we believed the pundits and pollsters instead of our faith in our mission to do good. We turned ourselves into professional cynics repeating clever never-heard-before(!) cliches like “the Democrats are just as corrupt as Republicans!” and “Obama didn’t fix the water travesty in Flint!” Oh wait — that was me who said those things! Well Mike, just because a cliche is true doesn’t mean you have to keep repeating it at a moment when we are facing the existential crisis of losing our Democracy. 

So before I paint the picture of how royally f***ed we will be should we lose on Tuesday (we won’t), let me start by giving you a small piece of good news:

Anything that a Republican Congress might pass can be stopped by a Biden veto. And because there is no way the Party of Trump will elect enough Senators and Representatives to override that veto, we are relatively safe for the two remaining years of our Democracy.

PLEASE SHARE THE FOLLOWING:

1. Plans have already been drawn up to impeach Biden. They will do this at least five times in 2023 and 2024. 

2. As the Republican Congress will control the country’s purse, they will attempt to remove all funding of ObamaCare, public education, poverty relief, hunger, the arts, civil rights enforcement, and the environment. “Defund the police?” Not quite. Their mission will be to defund everything. 

3. They will pass a nationwide law banning all abortion (to get it passed, they’ll reluctantly agree to sparing the life of the mother as their one exception).

4. They will ban same-sex marriage — because there’s nothing worse than marrying the person you love. 

5. Nothing will be done to halt inflation. Too much money is being made by the rich from charging higher and higher prices. Why spoil a good thing!

6. They will stop Biden’s college loan forgiveness program. It’s vital to keep young adults in hock as long as possible so they will be compliant workers in desperate need of that paycheck. 

7. The Republicans will continue to refuse to reinstate the Violence Against Women Act. Because, like, why?

8. They will investigate and seek to prosecute Dr. Fauci, Hunter Biden, Cassidy Hutchinson, Joe Biden, and yes, Hillary Clinton. 

9.  They will block any attempt by Biden to nominate a new Justice to the Supreme Court, claiming “two years before the next inauguration is too close to the next president taking office.”

10. As Trump now completely controls the Republican Party, all Republican elected officials, fearing him and needing his backing for re-election in 2024, will do whatever he tells them to do. It’ll be the first time in my lifetime where a defeated Commander in Chief remains essentially in charge as the Shadow President, pulling the strings, getting his way, fully in charge of the permanent roadblock and placing all of us in danger. 

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Mike's Midterm Tsunami Truth #35

The kids are all right.

(A daily series to counter the attempts to depress the Democratic vote next Tuesday.)

Everyone loves to characterize potential young voters as apathetic and lazy, and too often diminishes or outright dismisses the power they hold. Surprising? No. A mistake? Abso-f**king-lutely. 

Since 2004, young voters have overwhelmingly leaned Democratic. Like I’ve said in earlier Truths — the youth vote elected Obama to the White House in 2012. The youth vote gave the Democrats the House back in the 2018 midterms. And in 2020, the youth vote won Biden Georgia and Pennsylvania. Overall, 65% of 18-24-year-olds voted for Biden vs 31% who voted for Trump.

And this year all signs are pointing to history exceeding itself…

On Nov 1, Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) — the leading nonpartisan research center that focuses on young people’s civic and political participation — released its latest report. Based on 41 states where data is available, youth voter registration, age 18-24, is up 6% nationally compared to 2018. And in an election year where a number of races may be decided by a percentage point or two, anything above that in terms of new, young voters can make all the difference for the Democrats.

And this increase is in some of the states with the most hotly contested races:

·         +38% Michigan

·         +29% Kansas

·         +20% Colorado

·         +18% Nevada

·         +14% N. Carolina

·         +14% Texas

·         +5% Arizona

That 29% in Kansas helped the abortion referendum pass, and that 14% in Texas may very well carry Beto O’Rourke over the finish line.

Between August and November, 53% of newly registered 18-29-year-olds were women, compared to 47% men.

But Gen Z doesn’t only have the ability to vote this Roevember, they also have the intent.

study by Harvard recently revealed that 40% of all young adults plan to vote in this election — a record! Just two midterm elections ago in 2014, that number was just 19.9%! The study also found that young voters want the Democrats in charge of Congress by a 26 point margin.

And what are the main issues these young liberal-leaning voters say are bringing them to the polls?

·         Abortion

·         Protecting Democracy

·         Inflation

·         Climate Crisis

72% of the young Americans polled said they believe the rights of others are under attack, and 59% believe their own rights are under attack.

And the best part — we still have 6 days (including another whole weekend!) to keep driving the number of voters up! There’s still the chance, right now, in 21 states plus Washington D.C., to register to vote — 19 of which, plus D.C. offer same-day registration on Election Day, Nov. 8th!

Let’s keep up momentum folks! I am already doing my part by making my daily Mike’s Midterm Calls, and I’m asking you, please, continue doing your part to Get Out The Vote!

And don’t forget — the kids are all right.

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #34

Deep Down, You Know You’re Being Played

(A daily series to counter the myth that the Republicans are going to win the House and Senate)

In order to accept the ruse that “the polls have shifted in the Republican’s favor” — in other words, that the majority of Americans suddenly yearn for a return to the days of the accused rapist Trump — then you’d have to truly believe the following horseshit that the pundits, pollsters and party hacks are pedaling to you:

The Pundits: “The female fury over the Supreme Court Roe decision in June has subsided. Women were initially angry and upset, but then they calmed down and collected themselves, realizing that the cost of a dozen eggs (chicken eggs) and the price of a gallon of gas was far more important than having their own absolute legal control over their reproductive organs — and that being ordered to carry a pregnancy to term against their will was really no biggie.”

The Truth: The men who own and run the media have NO clue just how outraged the vast, vast majority of women remain over having it shoved in their face once again that they are second class citizens who are never going to hold real power (74% of Congress is still held by men and 426 of the Fortune 500 companies are still run by men), that women will never be paid the same as men, and that 56% of those forced to live in poverty and 64% of those who work the lowest paid jobs are and will always be women as long as the patriarchy says so — or until the patriarchy is smashed. 

And these men who’ve been telling you (lying to you) every day during this election that women don’t really worry their “pretty little heads” over this stuff — which is the literal man’s boot placed squarely on their necks, as RBG used to say — are also telling us that women have been able to put their “emotions” aside and now wake up every morning obsessed with the price of gas (as of today, a whopping 21 cents over a year ago!). Of course women would gladly give up their basic human rights for a gallon of gas! The men who think this way are either just stupid, or they know all too well that they must depress the Democratic vote next week by getting just enough of you to believe that women are now voting for Republicans.

Well, these men are about to find out just how powerful women are and that, in fact, they haven’t forgotten for a friggin’ second how the Catholic mullahs of the Supreme Court shat all over them on June 24th — and they will, one week from today, show the Party of Male Dominance what real Justice and justifiable vengeance looks like. I can’t wait to be a witness.

P.S.  One small hint of the oncoming tsunami of women: Early voting in Georgia has already set a new record. And here’s the “bad” news the patriarchy isn’t reporting — of those who have already voted, 55% are women and 45% are men. A whopping 10 point difference! Landslide numbers. And the men who’ve been telling us nonstop for the past couple weeks that the Republicans are going to win, causing so much despair amongst liberals — well, these men don’t even see the 100-foot female wave a-coming their way.

     

Bonus Thought:

In order to believe the polls claiming the American people want Republicans running our Congress — the same Congress where 147 of those Republicans voted to overthrow the election of Joe Biden — then you also have to believe that the 7 million people Biden won by have now been convinced by Rudy and the My Pillow guy that Biden is no good, he’s gone senile, and there’s got to be something evil on Hunter Biden’s laptop.

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #33

Let Me Call Your Non-voting Brother-in-Law!

We have just about a week left to go. Holy shit! This is it!

To win, to make sure our large majority of climate-believing, reproductive rights-supporting, anti-capitalist-fighting, mass incarceration-liberating, voter suppression-smashing, universal health care-providing, union-organizing, affordable housing-creating and soon-to-be victors over the Republican Party — all of us MUST step it up in these final 8 days if we are going to pull off the upset of upsets and send the politically illiterate pundits and election-denying party hacks packing! Once and for all!

I, too, must do more. While I can’t fly to a dozen states and go door-to-door with each of you this week, I can do the next best thing:  I can personally call your still-undecided brother-in-law and convince him to vote with us. Or your aunt who gave up voting a decade ago. Or your close friend that agrees with us but can’t stand Biden. That’s ok — let me talk to them. If you send me their phone number I’ll try to call as many as I can every day for the next 8 days. I’ll listen to them and then I’ll do my best to convince them to join us. We’ve got nothing to lose here and everything to gain, one vote at a time.  

So here’s how my phone calling for you is going to work: 

If you want me to call a relative or friend to convince them to vote, send me a private email to: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. with her/his/their name and number, what your relationship is to them (sister, brother, son, daughter, etc.), and the best time to call. NOTE: As I expect to receive a few thousand requests, I will only be able to do just so many calls. I won’t have the time to arrange it in advance with you or them. It will just be random and unexpected when I call. It’s the only way to pull off something a little crazy like this. But it’ll be fun — and I think I can bring a few people along with us.

I’m looking forward to joining with as many of you as possible. I simply want to do as much as I can while sitting here in my post-Covid recovery! Don’t worry, I’m all good, just a slight dry cough and fogging up occasionally trying to figure out why I’m watching this particular World Series (or is it the Bachelor in Paradise I’m confused about?). 

I will keep sending all of you the daily Midterm Tsunami Truths and my podcast. You might also see me on a few TV shows this week as I try to confront the attempts to depress our vote with the bs of the “surging Republican victory.” Oh wait — we swore off TV! Hmmm. I’ll leave it up to you. 

Let’s do this my friends! Time is running out. The hard work — convincing the vast majority of Americans to side with us on nearly all the major issues — that work is already done! They already do! Now all we have to do is get them to the polls! Easy-peasy! There’s at least 20 million more of us than the Republicans. I mean, talk about having a huge lead! Let’s not blow it. Let’s not fail and embarrass ourselves because we couldn’t get a voter 2 miles to the voting booth! 

Let’s go!

Let’s do this!

I’m here to campaign with you! Put me to work! I’ve got my phone bank all set up to get your family and your friends into a voting booth and save our Democracy. 

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Mike's Midterm Tsunami Truth #32

This Is All You Need to Know

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This is how the Republican Members of the U.S. House of Representatives have voted in the past two years. 

100% of all Republican members of the 117th Congress in the House of Representatives in 2021-2022 voted against everything from cheaper drug prices to against fixing climate change, against the Voting Rights Act, against helping veterans with cancer and against prosecuting rich tax cheats.

Please show this list to everyone you know. If there’s anyone still on the fence about voting, this should help them make up their minds. 

(This is part of my daily series to counter the propaganda that the Republicans are going to win the House and Senate).

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #31

If I Had a Hammer

(A daily dose of truth about how millions of American voters are going to crush the traitor Trumpsters on November 8th)

Of course, the first thought that went through my head was “You mean it was that easy to break into Nancy Pelosi’s home? The Speaker of the House? Second in line to the presidency?!!”

Fortunately for her sake, she was not home in San Francisco when the attacker broke the glass on the door, unlocked it and let himself in. Her husband of 59 years, Paul Pelosi, was inside the home. We still don’t know all the details other than Pelosi was able to dial 911, and when the police arrived the intruder was hammering Pelosi’s skull with, well, a hammer, and shouting, “WHERE’S NANCY??!! WHERE’S NANCY??!!”

This was the same screaming demand from the mob during the January 6th coup attempt. Once inside they were on a mission to hunt her down. They broke into her office, ransacked it and stole her computer. They wanted to hang Mike Pence and kill her. 

But, later that evening, once order was restored, 147 Republican senators and House members continued the coup attempt by voting to overturn the certified results of Biden’s election. It was a clear act of treason. In the 1800s, after the Civil War, this country was so worried that the treason committed by the South would eventually happen again, they wrote the punishment for it right into the 14th Amendment of the Constitution:

Section 3:

“No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof.”

Wow! It says it right there: If you as a member of Congress engaged in any insurrection or rebellion — or if you’ve given aid or comfort to that rebellion — then YOU can no longer be a Senator or a member of the House of Representatives or just about any other office in the land!

So why, for the life of me, are these 147 traitors still sitting in the House and Senate? Why have they not been arrested and tried? I guess that’s our job next week when we vote to remove as many as we can from Congress. 

Paul Pelosi underwent surgery for his fractured skull and right arm Friday night. They say he is going to recover, whatever that means when you’re 82 years old. The attacker is now in custody. His internet writings all parrot Trump and the My Pillow guy. He told the police his plan was to tie up Mr. Pelosi and then wait for Nancy to come home. 

As I followed the news of this over these last two days, I found myself quite unsettled and recalling the half-dozen times a right wing assailant has come at me with a weapon. Those who follow me here on my Substack know the sordid details of these attacks, so I won’t repeat them again. Needless to say, I felt awful for the Pelosis — and I realized this isn’t the last we have seen from these Republican thugs and their thirst for violence. 

Already they are camping out by the early-voting drop boxes to intimidate voters. They wear camouflage, masks and carry assault rifles because it’s legal to do so in most states. Election officials have seen a drop in the number of election workers who had signed up to work the polls. Reuters reported that in a poll they took, 40% of potential voters said they expect some sort of violence, if not an eventual Civil War. This is the new normal we are being asked to accept. 

As a part of this series to embrace our upcoming victory on November 8th, I’d like to help all of us break our culture of fear and defeat the forces of fascism and violence with a deep and different version of nonviolence. It’s about the part of the philosophy of Gandhi and King that is not taught in school or ever uttered on the news each January when we “celebrate” Martin’s birthday. 

It’s about how non-violence can’t work unless the forces of evil commit their own acts of extreme and abhorrent violence. 

Both King and Gandhi knew that the only way to defeat the racist Southern politicians and the racist British army was to get them to rip off their hoods and their “civilized” masks and expose themselves for the sick bastards they really were. King and Gandhi trusted there would be enough Americans and enough Brits who would be so appalled by the vicious response of armed authority against the peaceful nonviolent protesters that there would be a public outcry and a demand for change. 

But they knew that would not happen unless a number of Black Americans and poverty-stricken Indians were assaulted, crippled or killed by the authorities. THAT is what would move the needle toward Justice. So, as both men would later write about their strategy, they knew the only way to win was for them, the men of peace, to take the kind of peaceful actions which would definitely trigger the brutal violence of the ruling class. Which meant that King and Gandhi had to make sure that all marchers, freedom riders, salt boycotters, etc. had to agree that to participate in these peaceful violations of the law might very well get them killed. But it went even further than that. King and Gandhi knew that they would only succeed if some of their people — including possibly themselves — were murdered by the authorities or by their racist citizen posses. With the pictures of that, the good citizens in the UK and the US would act to stop it. 

They didn’t want to die. But they were willing to give their lives if that is what it took.

So, we all say we want to save our Democracy. Really? How far are you willing to go to “save our Democracy?” Write a $17 check? Post a blog? Sacrifice your life for the greater good?

Each person has to decide for themselves. But sometimes, when it comes to the big stuff, the day may come where you’ll have to ask yourself, is this really worth dying for? Not to kill for. But to die for. Nonviolently stand your ground and make them run over you. Let the world witness the true level of your commitment, be it to end a war, protect the rights of women, stop the police from killing an innocent Black woman or man, save this planet, or save our work-in-progress Democracy. Because if some of us are no longer willing to live in fear, to no longer be bullied, no longer be the wage slaves to our corporate masters, no longer have a Supreme Court of religious zealots forcing women to remain pregnant against their will — if we are willing to make it clear that while we will cause no harm to anyone, we will also no longer let the authoritarian State abuse, assault, humiliate, starve, refuse medical help, dumb down our kids to be cogs in the Idiocracy — if we are willing to say NO to all of that, to sit down and grind the machinery of power to a halt, then I promise you two things will happen:

1. Millions will see the level of our strong commitment to make their lives better, and they will make their way to the polls November 8th to elect the candidates who will pass the legislation we need. And…

2. Most Americans are repulsed by this era of political violence and want nothing to do with it. They need to take that repulsion to the polls and vote the Trumpsters out. And you need to try and get as many people as possible to vote. 

This is no time to be afraid. It is the moment to be brave. It is the week for us all to shine. The violent attack on the Speaker’s husband cannot become the first of many of these attacks. That hammer that sent him to the hospital is actually meant to be used on all of us. RESIST! It must end now. We need to speak loudly and with one voice. 

We do that, the election is ours. 

Roe the Vote!

Roevember is Here. 

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #29

They’ve Got Big Plans That We’ve Gotta Stop

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(Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

On June 24th this summer, our Supreme Court — 67% White, 78% Catholic, 59% Men and 66% who don’t know what dry shampoo is — issued their religious edict forcing all women of childbearing age who hold a fertilized egg into a government mandated and enforced pregnancy, under penalty of law. 

The Court ran out of room on their parchment scroll to list what the exact penalties would be should a woman try to escape the 9-month incubation by removing the clump of cells, so they left it up to the profound wisdom of the states — like Texas, where successfully performing an abortion is now a first-degree felony, punishable by up to life in prison. We are not that far from women hanging on the wall off the Boston Common. To think otherwise shows one’s stupidly dangerous naïveté.

On that day in June, with a nation in shock — and a gender in revolt, the spoils of which will be revealed on spikes in 12 days — much was made of the clear and incoherent opinion issued by the 12th-century Vatican scholar Samuel Alito. But there was little attention paid to the concurring opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas who, like Alito, is a true believer in shoving vicious, never-uttered-by-Jesus Catholic ideology down the throats of America. 

On that day of infamy, Justice Thomas waxed poetically, wondering just how far the Christian Nationalists could take their Roe-killing decision.

According to Thomas, very far. 

Here’s what he wrote in his concurring opinion:

“We should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold (which legalized Birth Control), Lawrence (which invalidated sodomy laws), and Obergefell (which legalized same-sex marriage). Because any substantive due process decision is “demonstrably erroneous,” we have a duty to “correct the error” established in those precedents. After overruling these demonstrably erroneous decisions…”

So, to translate Thomas’ plans, here’s what he’d like the Court to do:

Outlaw birth control.

Outlaw same-sex sex.

Outlaw same-sex marriage. 

The idea is to build on outlawing abortion, using the Court’s new rationale to expand their bans on other sexual behaviors they find to be deviant and against God’s will. 

But as we know, it’s usually the actual deviants, in their sick and twisted minds, who want to stop the “perverts” who use a diaphragm or a condom or an IUD, or any pill or device that grants women absolute control over their bodies. That, to them, is the ultimate crime.

And now they think they can get away with it because, well, they just did get away with it.

Thomas is not alone. His opinion was hailed by all forms of Republicans and right-wingers, and emboldened a swath of Republican lawmakers to publicly pledge their loyalty to this agenda.

In July, when the House Democrats, as the majority, put the “Respect for Marriage Act” — a bill that would repeal the “Defense of Marriage Act,” and prohibit states from discriminating against couples married in other states regardless of the couple’s “sex, race, ethnicity, or national origin” — up for a vote, 157 Republicans voted against it.

Democrats followed up a few days later with a vote for the “Right to Contraception Act” — a bill written to “protect a person’s ability to access contraceptives, to engage in contraception, and to protect a health care provider’s ability to provide contraceptives, contraception, and information related to contraception.

This time, only 8 Republicans crossed the partisan line to vote with the Democrats, 2 others abstained, and a whopping 195 Republicans voted against Americans having the right to buy, use, or even learn about condoms.

But, my friends, the fatal flaw in their agenda, the actual Achilles’ heel here, is that what they’re trying to attempt is actually something the vast majority of Americans oppose:

·         71% of Americans support same-sex marriage.

·         75% of Americans support access to birth control.

In fact, as the LA Times reported, Only four states — S. Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Arkansas — lack clear majority support for marriage equality, according to state-by-state surveys by the Public Religion Research Institute.”

As the “Respect for Marriage Act” sits and waits for its vote on the Senate floor after the Midterms, 5 Republican Senators have publicly stated their support, while 8 Republican Senators have clearly stated their opposition. For the rest, mums the word, as they try to “wait it out,” past the election, knowing the will of the majority of the American people stands in conflict with their base.

It’s clear though in the last couple weeks, that despite the actions of their colleagues in the House, the Senate Republicans have been told to tone down their rhetoric, that their anti-abortion stance is a losing proposition in this election.

One of the 5 Senators that has publicly stated his support for the “Respect for Marriage Act” is Ron Johnson who said that while he thinks the bill is unnecessary because he believes Obergefell will never fall, “should it come before the Senate, I see no reason to oppose it.” Why? Because he’s running in a hotly contested Senate race and he knows full well that 72% of Wisconsinites support marriage equality — including 58% of Wisconsin Republicans.

And that, my friends, is why they’re going to lose. Even Ron Johnson can see the writing on the wall.

Not just because of everybody reading this, but because everybody wants and needs birth control. Everybody wants to marry the person they’re in love with, regardless of their gender. And everyone wants and deserves their God-given right to have sex.

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #27

We are going to win because our side has millions of good souls like this…

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This is who we are. And we should take heart that everyone like Luke — who represents the true majority of Americans — are voting early right now. They are sending in or dropping off their mail-in ballots right now. And they are going to vote en masse on November 8th!

Hate loses. And if you don't believe that, then start fighting with all the love you have inside you for these next 2 weeks. Convince just one person you know who usually doesn’t vote to vote just this one time. “Adopt a Nonvoter!” There are over 15 million of you who are reading or have access to this Midterm Tsunami Truth right now. You subscribe (free and paid) to my Substack where there have been 5.4 million reads of these daily Truths since I began posting them 4 weeks ago. You follow me on social media. You are a regular listener to my podcast (nearly 40 million downloads to date). You are a massive force to be reckoned with. If just 10% of you convinced just one friend or family member to vote, that’s an extra 1.5 million votes! 

rump won in 2016 by just 77,000 votes in the three states that put him over the top in the Electoral College. Each of you, in just this one very small way, can move a mighty mountain in these final two weeks. 

You have to believe! You have to know the real and loving America you live in. Re-read the tweet from Luke above. Stop listening to those who are working overtime to depress and lessen the Democratic vote. 

They are banking on your cynicism and despair. Don’t be their puppet! Resist! Trust that love usually wins out in the end. Stand up today and do something to make this happen. If you can’t stand up for this crazy, flawed, amazing country, then can you please just stand up for yourself? 

For your own dreams and desire to live a life that seeks Justice and Peace and a fair shake for everyone? A life not controlled by the company, the boss, the neighborhood association who just told you they don’t like the garden you’ve planted or the color you’ve painted your shutters. 

There are scoundrels on this ballot who plan to cut your Social Security and Medicare. Who are going to cut funds to your child’s school. Who are going to turn your public library over to a profit-making corporation in order to “save money.“ 

Their agenda is to make your life harder as they line the pockets of their wealthy donors. Don’t think for a minute they plan to stop with regulating uteruses and deciding who you can marry. They are overflowing with hate and anger and the fear of losing their Caucasian Patriarchy. Don’t think for one second that they wouldn’t kill, metaphorically or literally, to preserve their authority over you.

So please encourage all who you know to stand up — for their own dignity, for this last chance to save what we have, to do it for those who came before us, who gave their lives, who suffered through poverty to give us a chance, my grandmother, desperate to feed her children, who went door to door in the nicer neighborhood of Flint and offered to iron their clothes for a dime. 

I do it for her. And for you. I do it with Luke who wrote that tweet saying he’d be proud to have an asylum-seeking immigrant family living next to him. 

I do it for us, the majority. 

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #26

We Will Win Because Americans Don’t Want to See This Happen...

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By the Times Obituary Staff

A system of government, once the dream of Enlightenment visionaries including Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin and John Locke, died quietly last night in voting booths across America with the American people themselves agreeing to end the experiment that ultimately never fully attained its potential as a nation of true equals.

Founded during the brutal genocide of the Native Peoples, and then built on the backs of kidnapped and enslaved Africans, American Democracy proclaimed in its founding document that “all men are created equal” — although none of the founding fathers actually believed that, even though they thought the sentiment “sounded nice.”

Having not been attempted for over 2,000 years since the Greeks first invented their form of democratic government, American Democracy was born in 1776 as part of a rebellion against British taxation, British courts wanting to eliminate the slave trade and the King of England issuing a proclamation acknowledging that Native Americans had suffered “great Frauds and Abuses” and promising that no further British settlements would be built west of the Appalachian Mountains. This infuriated the wealthier colonists who then decided to take up arms against the Crown.

The eventual American Constitution guaranteed that only 10% of its citizens — just the white male property owners — could participate in its Democracy. For the next 200 years, America tried to improve on its idea — ending slavery, letting women vote, letting people marry whom they wanted to marry, etc., but they never could get it quite right.

By the 21st century, new Christian Nationalist leaders emerged promising to “make America great again” which inspired the dwindling White majority to become politically active. At the same time, the more liberal Americans grew tired of politics and spent their time amusing themselves with “binge watching” and “craft beers.”

In yesterday’s historic election, tens of millions of voters showed up to put American Democracy out of its misery. Newly elected Senators and Congressmen promised more religious laws like the ones banning abortion and sodomy.

Conservative leaders from the UK to Italy to Brazil hailed “America’s courage in ending its flawed attempt to promise ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’ when both are in direct contradiction to capitalism and the free market,” said Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

To celebrate their victory, MAGA groups across the U.S. tonight are holding Critical Race Theory book burnings and round-ups of those who “are confused about which gender they are,” said the Leader’s son.

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Mike's Midterm Tsunami Truth #25

The side with the best nursery rhymes wins.

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Michael Moore sings a nursery rhyme for you.

LISTEN NOW · 1:52

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Roe, Roe, Roe the Vote!

Lyrics by Michael Moore:

Roe, Roe, Roe the Vote!
Gently to Roevember. 
Merrily, Merrily,
Merrily, Merrily
Traitors are dismembered
Roe, Roe, Roe the Vote
Toss the GOP!
When they’re gone 
We’ll pass some laws 
And save Democracy!
Roe, Roe, Roe the Vote
A woman’s right to choose!
Guns are gone
And so is ‘Rump
There’s no way we can lose!
Roe, Roe, Roe The Vote
Free Health Care soon for all!
Paid family leave 
And College is free
Relax — it’s legal weed!
Roe, Roe, Roe the Vote
People over Profits!
A living wage
Grandma loves Old Age!
The rich now pay for all of it!
Roe Roe Roe Your Vote
November 8th’s the day!
We’ll’ve PeaceNoWAR!
Ted Cruz no more! 
The Earth We All Will Save!

LISTEN NOW · 1:52

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #23

We Believe in Science. And that’s why we will win.

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There comes that moment when, sadly, a person breaks. Breaks from reality. Breaks from what they know to be certain truths. Even breaks from themself. 

Have you ever had this happen to someone you know and perhaps love? Or maybe it happened to you? I’m not talking about one day you just get up from the cubicle you’ve worked in for 20 years and simply walk out the door, never to return to a job you’ve come to loathe because now you’ve decided you are going to help save the bees or go back to school to study butterflies, or maybe take your meager savings and buy a small farm or devote your life to being a subway conductor (my personal fantasy). Those would all be significant breaks from how you spent the first half of your adult life, and if you suddenly did any of these, your loved ones and close friends might think you’ve lost your mind. 

But that would not be the case. In fact, you might have saved your mind (and your life) by finally doing the thing you’ve always wanted to do. And soon, some of those close to you will see the truth of that. You’re now happier, more engaged, an exuberance that few had ever seen. 

So sometimes a break is good. Maybe you’ve decided to switch from being a Presbyterian to becoming a Unitarian — or no religion at all. Yesterday you were a Red Sox fan, today you’re cheering for the Yankees. Blue was always my favorite color but now I seem to be painting everything yellow. I have not gone bonkers, and if you see me driving the A Train out to the Rockaways one afternoon, please don’t judge me or worry that I won’t ever make another movie. I might just be filming “My Year Conducting the A Train”, a documentary on our need for better mass transit. 

But what happens when your brother-in-law one day tells you that the climate crisis is a hoax. Or that Bill Gates has convinced the government to place a tracking device in each vaccine shot. Or that the earth is flat, dentistry is quackery, and the public schools are the groomers of an eventual nation that will soon be 100% homosexual. 

What do you do when their break from reality is that severe? A break where they claim to have actual evidence that everything they are telling you is “true.” 

I just tested negative, finally, for Covid! I am no longer contagious! And I feel at least 80% better (still a bit exhausted). I never had to spend a night in the hospital. I didn’t die. Why is that? Because, as I told you in my podcast this week, I believe in science and medicine and people I trust who have devoted their lives to keeping the rest of us alive. And that belief I’m sure has helped me once again. It’s because I was fully vaccinated and always masked around others, because I socially distanced and washed my hands a half-dozen times a day, I didn’t get Covid in its earlier, more deadly strains. I followed the science and the doctors’ orders and knowing this whole time that I and 90% of us would eventually get Covid, I held it at bay until its fifth variant was too weak to kill me. The vaccine shots I knew were never supposed to prevent me from getting Covid — they were there to help assist an immune system that would eventually have to fight this virus and get me well within a few days or weeks. 

And that’s what it did. Over 100 million Americans have lived to tell the story I just told. 

And sadly, a million+ didn’t make it. Many had existing conditions that perhaps doomed them. But thousands upon thousands are dead because they didn’t trust science or the government or the pharmaceutical companies. I do not trust most parts of the government and none of the profit-hungry pharmaceutical corporations. 

But I don’t believe in throwing out the baby with the stinky bath water. There are so many good things government does for us and can do for us. And we need drugs! In the past 100 years our life expectancy has nearly doubled — thanks to medicine (until the Trump years when we dropped from 78.8 years to 76.1 years old). Historians in the future will never understand why, when Covid-19 appeared, the President at that time called it a hoax and fought the scientists who wanted to save our lives. His reckless, heartless attempts to lie to his own supporters — who then didn’t get vaccinated, and didn’t wear masks — caused hundreds of thousands of them to die. What leader throughout history would kill off his own followers? Insanity! Does he not realize when we win on November 8th by 100,000 votes, it may be because he essentially killed them? Isn’t that ironic?

But Trump is not alone. There are other examples in history of deaths caused by people who rejected science:

·         The American Airlines Flight 965 Boeing 757 jet that the pilots flew into a mountain in Buga, Colombia because they didn’t believe their plane’s own computer that was yelling at them that they were flying… into a mountain!;

·         The Adriatic Energy Corporation ignored warnings from numerous science-based geologists and engineers in 1963 against filling the Vajont Dam in Italy too quickly. And then — BOOM! The result: 2,000 dead Italians.

·         The Donner Party trying to make it across the Sierra Nevadas during a blizzard because they didn’t believe in the science of weather;

·         The Mayflower, whose navigator didn’t know the science of how to read the stars in the sky (the science of astronomy), so in November they ended up in Massachusetts instead of Virginia where almost half of them didn’t survive the winter;

·         The great film director Billy Wilder (“Some Like It Hot”, “The Apartment”) who, on the day after Hitler was inaugurated, immediately got on a train and left forever to Paris, and then to America. Lucky for him, he believed in political science. 

Science — and my belief in it — saved me from Covid. It’s over. I’m alive!

Thanks to all of you for the good karma you sent my way, not to mention some of your great chicken soup recipes you passed on to me! 

It feels so good to be alive! I’ve just made a list of why it’s great to be alive:

·         I got to see the riveting season finale last night of The Handmaid’s Tale. I was so moved by its, yes, humanity. Can’t wait for Season 6!

·         I get to go to my first play in three years: Samuel L. Jackson in August Wilson’s “The Piano Lesson.” Directed by his wife, LaTanya Richardson Jackson. Sounds amazing!

·         Last month, an old friend from 40 years ago suddenly reappeared! Wow!

·         During the pandemic, while isolated at home, I began four new projects — which one will I now complete first?! This is exciting. 

·         I’ve always wanted to visit Montevideo. And to go to the only state I haven’t been to: Wyoming. 

·         I’m going to finally climb the 6 highest “peaks” in New England. Sounds more impressive than it is, but still, why not?

·         And I can’t leave until I help us get the Equal Rights Amendment for women (ERA) into our Constitution. Also, no exit for me until everyone in this country has free universal health care, just like my Canadian cousins do! Plus, I want to ride on the first of hundreds of bullet trains still to be built in this country. I want to be there on the day our prisons are virtually emptied and the 147 Senators and members of Congress who betrayed us on Jan 6th are convicted and sent to a work release camp in Flint to help replace all the poisoned water pipes and home plumbing and to help build affordable housing there to honor the city that gave birth to the union movement and the American middle class. 

·         Finally, I want to witness us offering remorse and granting restitution to the current descendants of those Black and Native Americans who have suffered for centuries — and who still today occupy the lowest rungs of our economic ladder. I want to see its end and I believe I will. 

Now more than ever I’m convinced that the side that believes in science — those voters who haven’t broken with reality — are the ones who will prevail. 

Don’t be afraid. Enlightenment kills all fear.

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #22

If the election is about inflation and the economy, THANK GOD — We Win

I have been waiting for this moment for a long time. 

I want all of you to embrace it, too. And every day, for the next 20 days, I want you to spread the good word to everyone you know — online, on phones, in person, via fax, Western Union, Morse Code or Pony Express — because you don’t want the other party, the Party of Greed, in charge at a moment like this. You want the ones who care about you and your children — the side who wants whatever little money is left in your pocket to stay in your pocket. 

Not the side that wants to pick your pocket. 

Here are the facts you need to share with everyone in your community:

1. We are in the middle of a worldwide inflation crisis caused by a worldwide pandemic PLUS a war between the two largest countries in Europe. Having Republicans in power isn’t going to change that. The last time a European country invaded another European country, the result was that inflation wasn’t on anyone’s mind. 

2. The truth today is that Corporate America has purposefully created this inflation “crisis” by taking advantage of the pandemic and the war as an excuse to raise prices on the average consumer. The result: Less money in the average person’s pocket — and record profits posted by numerous companies over the past two years. It’s been one of the biggest ruses in history. Republicans, having pledged their loyalty to make the 1% richer, are counting on us being too stupid to figure it out. 

3. How good has it been for the wealthy while a plague killed over one million of us? As my friend, Bernie Sanders, pointed out last week, it’s been really, really good:

·         The five big oil companies raised prices at gas pumps and that made them a whopping $59 billion in profits — that’s just during the 2nd quarter of this year!

·         Grocery prices were jacked up by over 33% last year and are expected to go up another 23% this year — making Big Food and Big Agra-billionaires a monstrous $382 billion richer during the pandemic, while the public was forced to feed their families less when they desperately needed to stay healthy in order to avoid the deadly virus. 

·         In a year when Americans needed more health care than ever before, Big Pharma decided to make a killing by charging Americans the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. Three of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the U.S. – Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson, and Abbott – made out like bandits, increasing their profits in just one year by 90% to over $54 billion.

·         And during last year, it was reported that 46% of all Americans either skipped or delayed the healthcare they needed because they could not afford it — because 85 million of them were uninsured or underinsured — while the six largest health insurance companies in America made over $60 billion in profits!

So why is it that in the polls, Republicans always end up winning the question of “Which party do you trust more with the economy?” Especially when it’s the Democrats who will create a living wage, will continue the $300 child tax credit — which slashed the child poverty rate by over 40% — will create paid family leave for all workers, and on and on. Which party’s policies will put more money in your pockets? 

So Republicans think this is how they’re going to win next month. With the mob that made the rich richer? The protectors of wealth and power? Pah-lease.

Why can’t the Democrats convey this simple message? Is it because too many of them should be embarrassed by the big bucks they’ve collected?

If I were them, I would take that blood money and buy 30 minutes of live prime time TV this week on every network, place Biden in front of the camera, and give him the chance to say the following:

My fellow Americans,

I have a simple proposal, an offer I want to make you, one that I will put in stone, swear to on my parents’ Bible, and sign in my own blood if I have to.

I pledge to you tonight, if you decide in this election to leave me the House and the Senate as it currently is — and maybe give me a couple extra Senators for good measure — this is what I promise our legislative and executive branches of your government will do for you in the next two years…

Just before FDR died, he proposed we pass a Second Bill of Rights for all Americans. A bill that grants all of you a basic human right to afford food, decent housing, great public schools, excellent health care for all, a good job with dignity and a living wage, equal rights for women, the right to have time off, the right to not be gouged or to suffer from those who put the profit motive over the need for life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. 

This is all doable and affordable if we accept a slight shift in our values: by putting people over profits, peace over war, public safety for the common good, a fair shake for everyone. A country where all who live here have a seat at the table, and everyone gets a slice of the pie. 

Today we live in a country where just three men own more wealth than the combined wealth of 170 million Americans! How did we get to this place? In part, it’s because we let money decide who represents us. We don’t have a full and fair democracy. We need to finish the job. One person, one vote. No electoral college. Gerrymandering and voter suppression — a crime

I declare inflation over. Because they refused to regulate themselves, corporations will now be subject to price controls and profit limitations. The American people will not be bilked again. The owner’s can make money. They just can’t crush their workers and destroy their consumers. 

If you give me a majority in the House and Senate in this election, then we will give you a better and fairer shot at life. You deserve it. And we will make this happen for you. 

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #20

We Are in Charge

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(A daily series to counter the reporting that the Republicans are going to win the House and Senate.)

What if, in the next 23 days, we all woke up one morning and realized that we are indeed the majority of this country, and that there are millions more of us than there are of them. Because once we truly know that we hold the real power, the charade of the owner-class will be over. We will, as the graphic above shows, simply step back off the plank of doom and let the politician or the predator capitalist or the preacher man go flying off the edge of the very cliff they’ve brought us to. 

There are so, so many of us, and the day we decide to end our misery (and the planet’s misery), our suffering will start to be over in a matter of hours. Sometimes change does take forever. Sometimes it happens in a snap of the fingers. On June 26, 2015, at 9am, it was illegal in many states to marry the person you love if that person was of your gender. Just one hour later, it wasn’t. Boom!

On November 6, 2018, it was perfectly legal to gerrymander Congressional districts and commit acts of voter suppression in Michigan. Just 24 hours later, a landslide of voters showed up at the polls to place an amendment in the Michigan Constitution that made both of those atrocities an actual crime. Mic drop!

So step back off that plank. Reclaim the power we already hold in our hands! Convince 5 nonvoters you know to vote this week. “Just this once!”

Volunteer with any of these organizations — Grassroots Democrats HQDemocratic Volunteer CenterDemocratic National Committee, or Vote Forward — and become one of the millions who are making calls and sending postcards this month — from the comfort of your own home — to get out the vote! Most candidates’ websites will also connect you with remote volunteer opportunities (I have links for the Senate ones below). 

If you live anywhere from Minnesota to New York to South Carolina — from the Mississippi River to the Atlantic Ocean — you are most likely just a 2 to 4 hour drive from one of the four states — Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina — where we can take a U.S. Senate seat back from the election-denying, woman-hating, Democracy-destroying Trumplican Party. 

Or if you live from Oregon to New Mexico, or Florida to Tennessee, you live in a state that borders one of the states — Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Georgia — where we must hold the seats we currently have but could possibly lose. This must not happen. 

Please think about driving there for a day or two on one of the 3 weekends we have left before November 8th, and join in the grassroots campaign taking place there to make sure we secure 54 seats in our Senate (and there are House districts we need to hold, too — and you can help!). Make it a family trip! There are 74 million adult Americans who voted for Trump two years ago. There are 162 million (Biden voters, 3rd-party voters, and adult nonvoters) who did not. We hold the power, but we are powerless if we don’t use it. 

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You are just a 2-4 hour drive from keeping the Senate in our hands.

As a 23-year-old union organizer told me yesterday, “There are now 248 unionized Starbucks locations all across the country! On this very day last year, there were zero.” 

Change can happen very fast. 

The white patriarchy does not want you to know that or believe it. They’re counting on you not realizing that you only need to move just one foot off that plank that is keeping them in power. Take that step my friends and all of a sudden it’s whoosh! — and they’re gone. 

70% of all eligible voters right now are either women, people of color or young (18-35) — or some combination of the three. Add in the 1/3 of older white men who support women’s rights, civil rights and believe we are truly killing this planet, and you suddenly realize you already belong to a massive, crushing majority of people who want to save this country. 

What are we waiting for?

Let’s each of us do something today!!

These organizations will train you how to make calls, send texts, and write postcards to get out the vote & support Democratic candidates remotely:

Grassroots Democrats HQ

Democratic Volunteer Center

Democratic National Committee

Vote Forward

Most candidates’ websites also offer remote phone banking volunteer opportunities.

Cheri Beasley (D-North Carolina)

Mark Kelly (D-Arizona)

Mandela Barnes (D-Wisconsin)

John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania)

Raphael Warnock (D-Georgia)

Tim Ryan (D-Ohio)

Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nevada)

Michael Bennet (D-Colorado)

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #19

A Workers Revolt Extends to the Voting Booth

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(Photo by Adrian Sainz via AP)

(A daily series to counter the mainstream media narrative that the Republicans are going to take back the House and Senate. They are not.)

There is one group no one is paying much attention to leading up to the Midterms. It is a large segment of the electorate that is newly active, intensely motivated and whose numbers should tip the scales against the Republicans. 

Who are these voters that are going to keep the Senate and the House in the hands of the Democrats? They are a group so huge, and yet, despite their numbers, they are unable to make campaign contributions to candidates, and they own no media, no corporations and hold few elective offices. Which almost guarantees they are being ignored by the press, pundits and pollsters during this all-important election.

These are the people who clean your buildings, make your coffee, ship you your packages, flip your burgers, care for your parents, serve you, drive you, fly you, wait on you, test you for Covid, give you a flu shot, pick up your garbage, fix the leak in your bathroom, babysit your kids, pop your corn, change your oil, stock your hardware and deliver that nice hot pizza to you. 

They are the working class. 

They are called “blue collar.” The image the media gives of them is that of the beaten down and angry white factory worker they refer to as “Lunchbucket Joe.”

But this is an old and out-of-date depiction. The truth is that, in 2022, the majority of the working class, i.e., those who make the least amount of money, are young, of color and women. And for the past year, thousands of them, scattered across every corner of the country, across every job sector, have been in revolt, quietly building momentum to organize their co-workers. And in recent months, as the Midterm election was on the horizon, they have exploded into a full-scale revolution. 

The result: Hundreds of workplaces across America have now been unionized in the largest such movement in decades.

There are thousands of new union households thanks to numerous successful organizing drives. In the first half of 2022, out of 837 union elections, there were 641 victories (that’s a 76.6% success rate). And as of this June, there were already more new card-carrying union members in 2022 than were achieved in all of 2021.

It is a historic rise of unionizing activity across 45 states, and it dovetails with the vast majority of the American people (71%) saying they support labor unions — more than in any other year since 1965. The year your great-grandfather retired. 

Much of this shift has occurred thanks to young people. There is now a new generation of dispirited young adults who see they will likely never own their own home. They feel permanently tethered to unfulfilling jobs and they carry a crushing student loan debt that they may be saddled with into their forties or fifties. 

When Covid swept in, and the country locked down, a spark ignited within this new working class. For the “non-essentials” as they were called, it was fueled by their abrupt loss of income, with no protection or safety net to fall back on. For the “essentials” it was born while serving on the frontlines — risking their lives to keep the country functioning. But the flame that was lit inside them was the same: Despite being the majority of this great country, and the backbone of this great country, the fact was that this “great country” saw their jobs as expendable. Their lives were expendable. They were being exploited. And as the deadly pandemic raged, they all struggled to survive while the rich got richer. 

So this new generation did what Americans do — or what we used to do — they banded together to create real job security, benefits and a livable income for themselves.

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And as they continue to fight back against unfair labor practices, with new local unions being founded, the momentum keeps growing. 

Consider what’s happened:

As NPR reported at the beginning of October, “So far, more than 300 Starbucks stores in close to three dozen states have had union elections — a stunning number, given not a single company-owned store had a union at this time last year.”

Even more stunning — there’s an 82% success rate! As of last week, 248 Starbucks locations across 35 states voted “YES!” to unionizing.

But it’s not just Starbucks. In the past 2 months we’ve seen employees from Chipotle, and Trader Joe’s break through the barrier; a second Apple store vote ‘yes’. Even Congressional offices are unionizing — Andy Levin’s (D-Michigan) office was the first to unionize, followed by Ro Khanna (D-California) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minnesota), with 7 more petitions filed. And 800 Amazon employees at a warehouse in Albany, NY are voting THIS WEEKEND!

And petitions continue to be filed — in the past month employees from Lowes and Home Depot locations, 625 nurses at one of the largest hospitals in Kansas, and 300 T-Mobile employees all announced their intent to unionize.

Last week the National Labor Relations Board released their annual report — union representation petitions increased 53% this year!

And in 3 weeks, adding a “right to unionize” amendment to the state Constitution is on the ballot in Illinois.

“We are up against a lot of opposing forces,” 23-year-old newly card-carrying union member, Atulya Dora-Laskey, from Chipotle, told the Washington Post, “and at the same time, we are realizing there are more workers than there are people who are exploiting us. That’s the ultimate advantage. Through unionizing, we’ve seen that power.”

And guess what? On November 8th this new working class will vote with millions of other workers who hopefully will soon join their revolution to build the future they are fighting for. They know they need to elect a Congress that stands with the working class, side-by-side. As the pundits continue to predict victories for Republicans, no one seems aware of the massive wave of new labor that is about to sweep them away. 

Venti anyone?

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OCT 17

 

I have Covid. It doesn't have me.

 

Episode 257: Rumble with Michael Moore

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Friends,

I have Covid.

After avoiding it for nearly three years, it found me and was too happy to meet my acquaintance. On this episode of Rumble, I’ll tell you the touching story of this new friendship.

— Mike

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #17

Early Voting, Mail-in Voting, Dropbox Voting — These Were Made for Libs, Hard Workers, Book Readers, Artists, Busy Parents, Slackers, and Progressives like us! In other words, The Majority!

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A Michigan sunrise to enjoy while early voting. (Photo by Jeff Gibbs)

This is today’s reason why we will win in Roevember: in spite of successful Republican attempts to make it harder to vote — especially for students, the poor, working moms, Black and Brown people — we still have more days and ways now to vote than we did before the pandemic. In fact, if you live in Ohio, you can go vote today! In Michigan, we’ve been voting since it was 90 degrees and sweltering in September! In fact, in Michigan and a few other states, you can register to vote right up until what we still call “Election Day!”

Republicans — aka, the anti-Democracy Party of Trump — hate this. Because of Covid, everyone agreed back in 2020 that we had to make it easy for people to vote safely without contracting the virus. Turns out, all kinds of people loved voting in these new ways. 

Despite a deadly pandemic, we not only had the highest voter turnout of the 21st century with 67% of Americans voting, we also shattered the record of nontraditional voting with 69% of those who voted doing so early — either in-person or by mail. And PEW found the country, for once, was in agreement — the majority of both Biden voters (82%) and Trump voters (62%) cast their ballots before election day. And this year, they didn’t want to go back to the old way. 

Yet for the past two years we’ve faced attempts by Republican-led state legislatures to get rid of all the new ways people like to vote. And now there are, in many red states, fewer early voting days, fewer polling places — and in some cities with large populations, there’s only one Dropbox. Ha! 

Why don’t they want to make it easy for the citizens to vote? Because they know and agree with me on what I’ve been telling you since Midterm Tsunami Truth #1 — that there are more, many more, of us than them! And that means they can’t win unless they try to prevent some of the majority — us! —from voting. Take this as a compliment. They are so scared of us and the power of our multi-million majority, they have literally lost their minds. Gone bonkers. Cuckoo for Cocco Puffs crazy!

I mean, in just the past decade, they’ve been forced to endure a Black President, the gays all getting married, and hysterical women now making up the majority of both our medical schools AND law schools! 

“How in sweet Jesus’ name did this happen?! Marijuana everywhere! The churches are empty, young people don’t want to kill deer or ducks, you can’t bum a cigarette anymore because so few people smoke now! Vegans roaming everywhere, pronouns, so many pronouns, you don’t know who is who or what is they! Madness! Quick — close the borders! They’re trying to replace us! Mommy! Mommy! I‘M SCARED!!!”

Phew. It’s exhausting. But just like those who swore they’d never get in a horseless carriage or allow dangerous electrical wires into the walls of their homes, they will sooner or later get used to gays and their wedding cakes, and their very own kids teaching them about race and anti-racism. They will, in the next decade, learn to accept the free universal health care and day care we’re going to give them. They’re going to get a guaranteed vacation by law and paid time off when they have a baby or their parents take ill. These will be bitter pills for them to swallow, but eventually they’ll see that we meant well and we did this for them even though they didn’t vote for our candidates or listen to hip-hop or believe in Beyoncé or Buddha. We’ve always loved Uncle Bob, even though he drives us crazy. 

And on November 8th, their efforts to suppress the majority will fail — but not only because we will rise up, but because in their race to remain in power, they outmaneuvered themselves, and forgot to check their blind spot.

This election year, they’ve spent so much time convincing their side not to trust elections or ballots or voting machines or (black) election workers that now millions of Republicans are going to sit these Midterms out — “Because it’s all rigged!“ “Hunter Biden is controlling the punch card counters brought in from Venezuela!” “Look — there’s JFK, Jr.!”  Talk about an underreported story! 

So all we have to do is show up with a few of our friends from those Central American caravans and vote! If you can, bring a few neighbors, a cousin or two, a boy from school you're sweet on. And do it on an early voting day when the lines are shorter and snow hasn’t started to fall. Make it a Dropbox Date Night! Help your parents fill out their mail-in ballot! Order in the pizza, crack open a Stroh’s and toast this weird and wacky Democracy. 

It’s the only one we’ve got, and the only hope you have.

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Mike's Midterm Tsunami Truth #16

As Alex Jones has now been fined a billion dollars for his lies, that is nothing compared to the punishment other Republicans are going to get on November 8th.

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Today, a jury of regular Americans, after years of listening to lie after lie after lie from right winger Alex Jones who called the Sandy Hook school massacre “a staged hoax,” declared that Jones must pay nearly a billion dollars to the families of the dead children. 

It was nothing short of a red hot poker shoved straight into his eye. But it is nothing compared to what tens of millions of other regular Americans are going to do to all the lying liar Republican politicians on the ballot. 

We the people hold the red hot poker. The reason we will win the Midterms is that most Americans are fried from their brains having to process years of lies — not just from Alex Jones or his friend Trump, but nearly every Republican in office we’ve had to listen to for decades. From Nixon to Reagan to Bush, from Ollie North to Newt Gingrich to Dick Cheney, and now from McConnell and Boebert and Graham and Greene and Gaetz and McCarthy and Abbott and DeSantis and Kavanaugh and Thomas. From the 147 traitors on January 6, 2021, to the 291 candidates still running today on the "Big Lie" — the American people are screaming ENOUGH and can’t wait to give them the Alex Jones heave-ho.

This is another reason we are going to win. 

Thanks to all the Joneses. 

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #15:

Republican candidate for Governor of Pennsylvania

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(Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

(A daily dose of truth about how millions of American voters are going to crush the traitor Trumpsters on November 8th)

Well folks, we’re just 28 days away from arguably the mother of all midterms — literally a midterm election that will decide whether you’ll actually be forced to be a mother should you become pregnant.

And while the pundits are busy playing a game of whack-a-mole with your emotions, I’m here to remind you that the GOP’s slate of candidates in so many key races across the country are so extreme, so Whackadoodle, it seems like they have decided to hand the election over to the Democrats. They’ve given the majority of their own party no choice but to vote Democratic, or abstain. Which means win-win for us.

To prove it, I’ve made a list of The Top 10 Whackadoodle Republicans.

Take Trump’s fascist tendencies, add Pence’s ultra-conservative religious conviction, and sprinkle on a layer of white nationalism and you’ve got #8 on my list of the top 10 most whackadoodle Republican candidates…

8. Doug Mastriano — Republican candidate for Governor in Pennsylvania

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(Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)

Mastriano ticks every ‘nut’ in the nutbar. 

Let’s start with an excerpt from a rapid-fire interview Mastriano did in 2018 to announce his then-candidacy for a Pennsylvania House seat:

Interviewer:  Is global warming real? 

Mastriano: “It is not. It’s fake science. And it’s a racket at the academic level.”

Interviewer: Should gay marriage be legal? 

Mastriano: “Absolutely not. I’m for traditional marriage. And I am not a hater for saying that. It’s been like that for 6,000 years. It was the first institution founded by God in Genesis, and it needs to stay that way.”

Interviewer: Should LGBTQ couples — ie two moms or two dads — be allowed to adopt? 

Mastriano: “No.” 

Interviewer: Should gender identity be added to the nation’s anti-discrimination laws? 

Mastriano: “Absolutely not. That’s madness.”

Interviewer: “Is Islam compatible with the Constitution?”

Mastriano: “It is not. The Constitution was founded on Christian Judeo ideas and it’s only compatible with that worldview. Guess what? Not all religions are created equal. And they all have different worldviews”

That’s just the tip of the Pennsylvania-sized iceberg.

As the New Yorker reported in a 2021 profile

As a state Senator, “bills that Mastriano supported in the legislature would have mandated teaching the Bible in public schools.”

“He has often spread Islamophobic memes online. In one, he spread a conspiracy theory that Ilhan Omar, the Democratic congresswoman from Minnesota, directed fellow-Muslims to throw a five-year-old over a balcony. In another, he shared a graphic that read “Islam wants to kill gay rights, Judaism, Christianity and pacifism.”

And…

“At a gun-rights protest on the steps of the state capitol, he posed for pictures with white men in fatigues carrying AR-15s and several others in Hawaiian shirts, a hallmark of the Boogaloo Bois, a white-nationalist militia. In July, Mastriano attended a rally on the Gettysburg battlefield, where militia members gathered in response to a hoax circulated on social media that Antifa was going to topple Confederate statues. ‘A lot of people here just keeping an eye on stuff,’ he said. ‘Americans doing American things. Isn’t that beautiful?’”

In early July, it came out that Mastriano’s campaign made a payment of $5,000 on April 28th to the far-right social media platform Gab for “consulting services.” Gab (as you may remember from my post on Whackadoodle #9 Blake Masters) was started by white nationalist Andrew Torba to provide a safe, “censorship-free” space to share racists memes, antisemitic rants, and conspiracy theories. Torba said the money was paid for an advertising campaign. A few days later, on May 2nd, Torba released an interview with Mastriano on Gab. During their 16-min chat, Mastriano thanked Torba for creating the platform saying, “Thank God for what you’ve done.” Torba then officially endorsed Mastriano on Gab, and a late September campaign finance report revealed Torba, in July, contributed $500 to Mastriano’s campaign. 

Mastriano himself joined the Gab community in February, and between February & July posted 66 times. As the local NPR station in Pittsburgh reported:

“A recent post on July 9 — a criticism of Democratic economic policies — received 157 comments. At least two dozen of those responses — the most common response by far — were antisemitic insults about state Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the Democratic candidate in the race for governor. Shapiro is Jewish.”

At the end of July, days after Torba spouted antisemitic tropes to defend Mastriano’s connection to Gab, Mastriano deleted his Gab account and finally issued a statement via Twitter:

"Andrew Torba doesn't speak for me or my campaign. I reject anti-Semitism in any form. Recent smears by the Democrats and the media are blatant attempts to distract Pennsylvanians from suffering inflicted by Democrat policies. 

While extremist speech is an unfortunate but inevitable cost of living in a free society, extremist policies are not and the only candidate in this election who wants to impose extreme policies on Pennsylvania inflation, crime, lockdowns, and mandates is Josh Shapiro."

Yet, in August, Mastriano himself fueled a wildly debunked, antisemitic conspiracy theory about one of Shapiro’s donors, billionaire George Soros, in a speech posted on his campaign’s Facebook page:

“We could talk about Soros, who as a teenager collaborated with the S.S. to turn other Jews in in Hungary. They don’t want to talk about that. So who are the Nazis? It’s not us.”

Mastriano’s rhetoric likening liberals to Nazis goes way back. The Washington Post dug up the thesis paper Mastriano wrote in 2001 in which he asserts the U.S. was at the risk of what he called a leftist “Hitlerian Putsch.” As WaPo reported, “the document displays a disgust for anyone who doesn’t hold his view that homosexuality is a form of ‘aberrant sexual conduct.’”

In his primary election night address, Mastriano avowed:

“CRT is over.”

“Only biological females can play on biological females’ teams…”

And “you can only use the bathroom that your biology and anatomy says.”

In 2019, as state Senator, Mastriano sponsored a “heartbeat” bill banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected — usually around 6 weeks — and said any woman who broke that law should be charged with murder. On the day SCOTUS overturned Roe, Mastriano celebrated. “Roe v. Wade is rightly relegated to the ash heap of history,” he said. “As the abortion debate returns to the states, Pennsylvania must be prepared to lead the nation in being a voice for the voiceless.” 

During a campaign speech last Saturday, he pledged to give free reign on natural gas and oil drilling in the state, saying “Pennsylvania will be happy to export our freedom energy.’’ 

In the same speech, he rejected the idea of Pennsylvania becoming a sanctuary state, promised his administration would remove illegal immigrants, and likened COVID restrictions — including mask mandates — to the loss of freedoms resembling East Germany saying, ““I met a 17-year-old East Berliner. He was in a labor camp for two years. He said America was great … all he wanted was to be free.’’ Mastriano continued,“We take our freedoms for granted but we are starting to look like East Germany.” 

In the past he called Governor Tom Wolf’s COVID public health protocols “the governor’s autocratic control over our lives.”

Like Trump, he rails against the mainstream media, and is known for blocking reporters from covering his events. And (surprise, surprise!) he is the ultimate election denier. 

A leader of Pennsylvania’s “Stop the Steal” movement, in December of 2020 Mastriano attended “Jericho Marches” in Washington D.C. — gatherings organized for people like Alex Jones, white nationalists, conservative Christians, QAnon followers, Oath Keepers and others to join together and “pray, march, fast, and rally for election integrity.” Inspired, Mastriano appealed to his fellow Christian countrymen: “Do what George Washington asked us to do in 1775. Appeal to Heaven. Pray to God. We need an intervention.”

His campaign committee paid over $3,000 to charter 6 buses, and sold over 130 tickets to shuttle people to the Jan. 6 Capitol protests. While he claimed to have left the Capitol before the violence, video and images appear to show Mastriano passing a police barricade as it was being breached, on the Capitol lawn, and near the base of the Capitol steps.

He was subpoenaed by the Jan 6th committee back in February to hand over documents and information regarding an alternate elector-scheme in Pennsylvania. 

I could keep going and going…

Add it all together, and you’ve got a candidate leading the charge to recalibrate the political spectrum. 

“You guys think Ron DeSantis is good? Amateur,” Mastriano said at a rally back in May. “We love you, Ron, but this is Pennsylvania. This is where the light of liberty was set in 1776, where this nation was born.”

The problem is, as he’ll soon discover 4 weeks from today… the majority of Pennsylvanians in 2022 have no interest in living in his Christian nationalist state.

Stay tuned for more of the Whackadoodle 10!
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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami of Truth #14

If the Mainstream Media Thinks There’s a Chance We May Be Right about Roevember, Watch Out.

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami of Truth #14

If the Mainstream Media Thinks There’s a Chance We May Be Right about Roevember, Watch Out.

Oct 11
 
 
 
SAVE
 
     

(A daily series to counter the myth that the Republicans are going to win the House and Senate)

Just 24 hours ago, the award-winning online magazine Salon, became the first nationwide media outlet to tell the world about our Midterm Tsunami of Truth.

The result? Soon the stale, tired media narrative about how “the party in power always loses miserably in the Midterms!” will be put out to pasture in OK Boomerville.

All it takes is one little crack in the journalism dam that blocks fresh thinking…

Read the Salon analysis below, and get ready —

Four weeks from TODAY, MAGA is about to get the whoopin’ of their lives. 

Who Am I to Say the Republicans Will Be Defeated?

Over the past two weeks, I’ve given you 13 reasons why we, the people, are going to give Republicans the drubbing of their lives in the November midterm election. And I’ve got 31 more reasons to give you each day until November 8th — which is just FOUR WEEKS from Tuesday— as to why the pundits and the political hacks want you to believe the Democrats are going to lose. They want you demoralized, depressed, and fearful of The Return of Trump. 

My job is to tell you the Truth. Let’s start with who I am, because you have a right to know who is telling you not only how we are going to win, but that we are, in fact, going to win big this November 8th. 

Who am I to say this when I have nothing more than a high school education to back it up? That, and 50+ years of criss-crossing this great, flawed country listening to its people, learning from them, witnessing the crimes committed against them by the rich and powerful of this nation. I’ve written about it and I’ve filmed the effects that this economic system known as predatory capitalism has had on the poor and working poor and the middle class — people who were promised an American Dream, but instead were given the nightmare of living paycheck to paycheck (the majority of citizens never having more than $500 in the bank on any given day), or once again being deemed second-class citizens by the Supreme Court (women). 

A country where, according to a 2021 report by Duke University: 

“The typical Black household’s wealth is $24,100; but for White households, it is $188,200. This translates into the typical Black household holding about 12 cents for every dollar of wealth held by the typical White family– a disparity that has remained largely unchanged [for over 30 years].”

A country where the #1 cause of home foreclosures and bankruptcy is medical debt (and how sick is it that this is the only Western Democracy where a sentence like that can be written?). Last year, not a single family in Canada, the UK, France, Germany, Japan, Australia, Italy, Spain, Argentina, Uruguay, Morocco, Tunisia, Turkey, Estonia, Slovenia, Vietnam — do I have to name every country on this list from the UN where no one is thrown out of their home because they can’t pay a doctor or hospital bill? Nowhere in the developed world. No place. Except US. 

Who am I? I am not a Democrat. I belong to no Party. I was born in Flint, Michigan. I was raised in the working class, my father was an assembly line worker at General Motors and my mother a secretary and clerk. My uncle was in the Great Flint Sit Down Strike of 1936-37 that founded the United Auto Workers union. Another uncle was killed in the South Pacific in WWII. My father, also in the South Pacific as a Marine private in that war, cast his first ballot ever as a 23-year-old for FDR during the Battle of Peleliu in 1944. My mother — remember, the “secretary” — was the valedictorian of her high school class. Her employment opportunities, no matter how smart she was, were severely limited because she possessed two ovaries which, it was understood in those days, would not help her if she wanted to invent the electric typewriter or find a cure for the common flu. Like all women in the prequel to The Handmaid’s Tale (otherwise known as the 1950s), she was expected to have babies by the time she was 20. She held out until she was 33(!) — what courage! I would’ve loved to have known her then.  

I do know from our very observant and smart older cousins she was thoroughly thrilled to have me and my two sisters. The three of us were the smallest family at our Catholic school. Our mother had already taught each of us to read when we turned 4. 

At the end of 9th grade, the head priest at the Catholic seminary school I attended asked that I not return the following year. “You ask too many questions,” he said to me.“We (the Catholic Church) are an institution of answers, not questions.” 

My eighth great-grandfather on my mother’s side was a Scottish rebel captured by Oliver Cromwell’s forces and shipped in chains with 300 other POWs to the Massachusetts colony in 1651 to work as forced laborers, just 30 years after the Mayflower landed. My 4th great-grandfather was a Minuteman hero in the Revolutionary War. My third great-grandfather on my father’s side was a Quaker war resister who was convicted for refusing to be drafted into the War of 1812. My fourth cousin twice-removed was the President of the United States, Herbert Hoover. 

Just weeks after turning 18, I became (with a few scattered others) the youngest elected official in the history of the country. I founded a newspaper called The Flint Voice. The police raided us, seized our printing plates off the presses while they were literally printing that week’s edition. And that brought the national media in, made our little paper famous, and a year later President Carter signed a bill that Congress passed after the police raids on my paper and on a Boise TV station. The new law prohibited, nationwide, any police from raiding, searching or doing any seizing at a newspaper office or an electronic media outlet. 

I went on to write 8 books which have been translated into over 30 languages around the world. I’ve made a dozen-plus movies and have been handed an Oscar, an Emmy, a French Oscar, the San Diego Film Critics prize AND the Oklahoma Film Critics Award. I was presented with The John Steinbeck Prize by the Steinbeck Library. I have been banned from speaking, at various times, from George Mason University, the University of Miami, and Cal State-San Marcos, amongst many others. I’ve been given an honorary doctorate degree from Michigan State University, but my high school in Michigan banned me from speaking there after graduation in 1973 and I’ve not been let back in there since. Though I would come now, if invited, and fed.

I’ve survived six attempts on my life, not counting Matt Lauer trashing me on the Today Show on the morning of my only divorce. 

In 1993, the French government made my first film, “Roger & Me”, part of their national school curriculum in which all 12 to 14-year-olds would watch my film in their intro to economics class. Here in the US, the ratings board slapped an “R” rating on the same movie (as they have for all but two of my films), meaning no one under the age of 18 could see my films without a parent or guardian. Numerous schools forbade teachers from showing it in class. And while the French, British, Canadians and three dozen other countries have shown my movies on their main “free” networks (i.e., the BBC, CBC, France 1, etc), “Roger & Me” is the only one of all my movies that has been shown in my own country on one of our five “free” national networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, PBS and FOX). That was just one screening of one movie in all these 33 years — on PBS, in 1992. 

So who am I to tell you to believe that better days are ahead? That we will own Roevember? I don’t have a crystal ball. But I listen. I learn. I participate. I know who my fellow Americans are and I know the loudest and most hateful ones are not the majority. We are. I’m not a cynic. If I were, I couldn’t have written those last two sentences. All I ask is that you not give in to the cynicism. You have a right to be angry and to feel the utter despair over what has become of us. How often we’ve been let down — betrayed — especially by Democrats. How those with the big bucks control what seems like every friggin’ aspect of our lives. 

But they also know how we intend to one day rule over them and make them pay for their crimes against us and this planet because we intend to live and enjoy that pursuit of happiness we were promised. They know that day is coming — that’s how smart they actually are. And they know it’s not a matter of “if” but when — when we will finally have our nonviolent hands around their corporate/military/greedy “throats“ and we won’t let go until the chains are cut and we are free, starting with women, the descendants of enslaved humans, and the people whose land our ancestors stole. 

So that’s who I am. 

Who are you?

I’d love for us all to get to know each other in line on the early voting days this month or on November 8th itself. Don’t miss out on this! It’s gonna be the biggest cold weather party we’ve ever attended. 

After all, it’s not every day you get to save your own country. 

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth # 13

Women. That’s it.

There are 6 million more women in the US than men. Talk about outnumbered!

There are more women who vote than men — 63% of eligible women vote. Only 59% of eligible men vote. 

And when women vote, 56% of them vote for the Democrat over the 38% that vote Republican. 

Can these Republican men at least do the math?

So while I’m presenting all of these 44 reasons (one each day) as to why we are going to win in November (and how we’re going to do that), let’s not forget that there is one, overwhelming, laser-focused, locked-and-loaded reason that the Republicans are already doomed, defeated and demolished. They must know it. That they have cooked their own geese. 

And that reason is women

More than any other reason, women, the majority gender, one month from today, will lead the crushing blow of defeat to the Republican politicians committed to the destruction of our Democracy. 

The right wing Supreme Court issued a religious edict on June 24th declaring women as second-class citizens. They clearly didn’t understand that the vast majority of American women, regardless of political affiliation, DO NOT want the government in their bedrooms and they certainly are NEVER going to cede control over their reproductive organs to a bunch of Mitch McConnells. That is game over, and that is why in the last few months millions more women than men have registered to vote.

I wonder if these Justices ever talk with or listen to women? Do they know any women? Because if they did, they never would have gotten rid of Roe. I have never witnessed such stupidity on such a massive scale. Nor have I ever seen a backlash so intense, so together and so widespread. 

These Republicans have committed mass political suicide. Wow. Just wow. 

Women. That’s it. 

The Mother of all Steamrollers. Unstoppable.

Indefatigable. 

Unaccepting of anything but complete and total surrender. 

Over and out. One month from today. 

 
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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #12:

Biden just gave us a boost and a toke.

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(Photo By Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call)

On November 8th, the Republican Party will face a reckoning. This won’t happen through magical thinking, or hoping it into existence. It’ll happen because the nearly 200 million of us who make up the majority of this country did our part. 

Yesterday, President Biden did his: 

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With the stroke of his pen, Joseph R. Biden officially pardoned the thousands of Americans who were convicted on federal charges of simple marijuana possession since it became a crime in the 1970s. But he didn’t stop there…

He also encouraged all governors to follow his lead and do the same with people convicted on state charges for simple possession of marijuana. 

He asked the Attorney General and Health and Human Services Secretary to review how marijuana is categorized legally — the first step to changing its categorization from a Schedule 1 drug. Currently, as a Schedule 1 drug, marijuana is legally viewed the same as heroin, and more serious than fentanyl.

And most importantly — especially coming from the same man who championed a series of crime bills throughout the ‘80s & ‘90s that laid the foundation for the mass incarceration of millions of Black and Brown Americans — he pointed out the racist impact of drug laws like simple possession and use of marijuana. 

“No one should be in jail just for using or possessing marijuana — it’s already legal in many states, and criminal records for marijuana possession have led to needless barriers to employment, to housing, and educational opportunities,” Biden said in a Twitter video“And that’s before you address the racial disparities around who suffers the consequences. While white and Black and Brown people use marijuana at similar rates, Black and Brown people are arrested, prosecuted, and convicted at disproportionately higher rates.” He added, “ It’s time that we right these wrongs.”

It was the right and moral thing to do — and instantly changed the lives of over 6,500 Americans for the better. It also fulfilled a campaign promise, something rarely seen these days.

The linchpin to victory in any election is voter turnout. Our secret weapon is that the vast majority of Americans lean left on most major issues — in this case, according to Pew Research, 91% of Americans want marijuana legalized — so our only job is to get them to vote. It’s much, much harder if we have to convince them that pot should be legal. But we don’t! We simply have to get them to a voting booth or a drop box within a mile or so from where they live!

When talking to nonvoters, it’s easy to list the reasons to vote against the Republicans. But yesterday Biden showed Americans why they should vote for the Democrats.

Through his actions, nonvoters saw the will of the majority respected and reflected by the President — tangible proof that their votes do matter. This will especially resonate with youth voters. We’ve already seen it.

When marijuana was on the ballot in Michigan’s 2018 midterms, youth voter turnout (age 18-29) doubled — from 15.3% in 2014, to 32.7% in 2018. 

This unexpected, sweet-smelling backwind from Biden is exactly what we need to swell this Blue Tsunami!

[ You know what? Excuse me. I think I need to call the White House again, 202-456-1414 ]: 

Mr. President? Hey, it’s Mike again. I’m so happy you got my message last week — I was harsh, I know, but there’s too much on the line here. Thank you for the important step you took this week to righting a terrible injustice inflicted upon so many of my fellow Americans. We have a long way to go — a lot of those in prison who were only possessing it also were falsely charged with selling. So you need to address that, but taking this first step is critical. So thank you for that… 

Oh, and since I’ve got your ear — DON’T STOP! There’s still so much you can do between now and November 8th to better the lives of Americans! How about paid family leave for federal workers? Universal Pre-K? Raise the minimum wage! We have, what, two-million unfilled jobs right now in this country?! We need immigrants! For jobs that pay a living wage! Fix this! So many more steps you can take to fulfill your promises! 

Keep going Joe! I can’t wait to see what’s next! Free Leonard Peltier!

[ End call ]

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Mike’s Midterm Tsunami Truth #10:

Meet Blake Masters, Whackadoodle No. 9

(Photo by Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

In 34 days from today, on Wednesday November 9th, I believe we will wake up that morning with smiles on our faces. Because tens of millions of us will have descended upon the polls the day before and, in a poignantly Democratic move, saved our Democracy. 

And while we enjoy our morning coffee or tea, we will revel in our own contribution to this victory — those 5 new voters we each registered, the carpool shuttles we arranged to get our fellow Americans to the polls, the donations made to our progressive candidates and all the groups that fought for a free and fair election. And when we leave the house that morning in our fall jackets, we’ll look down and notice we’ve left our “I Voted” sticker on the front, and in a moment of both joy and relief, we’ll decide to leave it on for another day or two or three…

And in the midst of all that, we will also feel a small flicker of a thank you to the Republicans for helping us win by running the craziest bunch of whackadoodle candidates in the history of this country.

So today, I’d like to introduce you to the next Republican candidate on my Top Ten Whackadoodle list.

Without further ado, please meet…

9. Blake Masters!  Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate from Arizona!

     
(Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Blake Masters, the Republican candidate running against Democratic incumbent Senator Mark Kelly in Arizona, has a vision for America:

“Local control! Small empowered villages and towns would probably be… much better. Where our children would not get indoctrinated, but be brought up with the town’s values and the family’s values…”

So what would these “town values,” and these “family values” be in Masters’ villages? 

After listening to Masters speak for the last few hours — culling through various Twitter videos, podcast interviews, Fox News appearances, debates, and his own campaign ads — I’ve learned a few things as to where Blake Masters stands:

Critical Race Theory —

On the podcast Subversive with Alex Kaschuta:

“Good luck criticizing me for saying Critical Race Theory is anti-white. It obviously is.”

Trans Rights —

Speaking to Tucker Carlson:

“Tucker, the schools! They’re indoctrinating our kids. They’re teaching boys to cut off their… [leaves a pause so he doesn’t have to say “penis”]...I mean, my God!”

Affirmative Action —

On Twitter:

“I can’t think of a single policy since the end of Jim Crow that’s been worse, or more divisive for race relations in this country. Race quotas are wrong. Gender quotas are wrong. They’re unjust, they’re illegal, but the Democrats are addicted to this kind of identity politics garbage. They just care about how you look, not whether you’re the best qualified, or whether you can do the best job. You know, if you want to see the Affirmative Action regime on display — just look at Biden’s White House. Biden promised that he would choose a woman for his V.P. Then, of course, he chose Kamala Harris — so incompetent she can’t even get a sentence out. But I’ve never spoken to anyone who can say with a straight face that Kamala was somehow the most qualified candidate for that job.”

The Jeff Oravits Show (podcast):

“I didn’t say she [Justice Jackson] didn’t go to a good law school. She’s probably like, you know, she’s probably got a high IQ. What I said was she’s the affirmative action candidate, and she just indisputably is…”

Gun Violence —

The Jeff Oravits Show (podcast):

“We do have a gun violence problem in this country, and it’s gang violence, right? It’s gangs, it’s people in Chicago, St. Louis, shooting each other. Very often, you know, black people, frankly. And the Democrats don’t want to do anything about that. Look at San Francisco and L.A. — they’ve legalized crime.” He also added, “Republicans don’t want to talk about urban crime, right? Because they’re terrified of being called racist. And Democrats don’t want to talk about big city crime because they’re ok with it. You know they want Phoenix to look more like Chicago, more like Baltimore. And, I just have a problem with that. If you don’t have law and order, you don’t have anything.” 

Immigration —

Reported by the NYTimes:

“What the Left really wants to do is change the demographics of this country,” Mr. Masters said in a video posted to Twitter last fall. “They do. They want to do that so they can consolidate power and so they can never lose another election.” 

And on Twitter:

“Illegal immigration is a disaster, and this mass amnesty is an electoral strategy for the Democrats.” He added, “So if you want to call me a white supremacist for that, that’s stupid, but go ahead and knock yourself out. Be my guest.”

The Jeff Oravits Show:

“Well, we know what a good piece of border legislation looks like — we’ve got to triple the size of border patrol, finish President Trump’s wall, re-implement Remain In Mexico, mandatory e-verify. I’m a tech guy, so I want technology to help us lock that border down, right? Infrared cameras to map every inch so we can tell where the tunnels are and blow ‘em up. We know what to do. The problem is we lack the political will. You know, the Democrats don’t want to seal the border. Quite the opposite — they want the open border, and too many Republicans get squeamish about it, right? They don’t want to be called racist.”    

On Democrats —

Speaking to Tucker Carlson:

“It all goes back to the Democrats trying to destroy the family. You know, whatever the issue is that the Dems are shrieking about today — maybe it’s COVID, maybe it’s climate change, maybe it’s systemic racism — ultimately their goal is to separate, to drive a wedge between children and their parents. For the Left it’s about creating this new red guard, right? Training this new generation of activists who are going to go and try and erase our history, and destroy our country.” 

Taking all this into consideration, all the people overtly excluded from Masters’ vision of America, I can’t help but wonder — who are the people left to be Masters’ neighbors in these new perfect white villages?

Well, Andrew Anglin for one, founder of the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer, a site with a running “Demographic countdown” clock ticking down until non-white people outnumber the white people. He has also authored numerous articles with headlines like “Satanic Hindu of Color Kamala Says Only Blacks Will Get Hurricane Relief” and “Unfunny Mulatto Fa**ot Trevor Noah Finally Giving Up, Quitting Failed Daily Show”. And he has also said this, as reported by the Phoenix New Times:

“This is the Jews for you, people,” Anglin wrote in the first of a 30-article series that advocates genocide of Jewish people. “They are a vicious, evil race of hate-filled psychopaths. When you do something they don’t like, they will use the power of the media to come down on you, assassinate your character.”

“Jews should be exterminated” and, “The day is coming when we’re going to tear down the hoax [Holocaust] memorial in Berlin and replace it with a statue of Hitler 1,000 feet tall."

On June 9th, Anglin said that Masters was “exactly the kind of man this country needs,” writing: 

“I cannot give a more forceful endorsement, and I demand that anyone in Arizona (who is not some kind of known neo-Nazi or whatever) get in contact with his campaign and see what kind of help he needs.

This is exactly the kind of man this country needs.”

Three weeks later, on July 2nd, after a public outcry, Masters finally rejected the endorsement — though he didn’t actually denounce Anglin’s toxic hatred and nationalist ideology, instead he lashed out at the media. 

In a statement to the Phoenix New Times, Masters wrote: 

“I’ve never heard of this guy and I reject his support. The reason I’ve never heard of him is because he’s a nobody, and nobody cares about him except the media.” He continued, “They’d like to build him up in order to smear anybody who believes in common sense border security as some kind of ‘Nazi.’ It’s a cheap tactic from Mark Kelly’s media allies and it’s not going to work.”

At the end of July, Masters was also endorsed by Andrew Torba — founder of Gab, the far-right social media platform whose logo is a green frog in a not-too-subtle nod to the notorious Pepe the Frog found in racist memes, which is known for hosting white supremacists. This past February, Torba himself was a speaker at a white nationalist conference and has Tweeted things in the past like, “We’re building a parallel Christian society because we are fed up and done with the Judeo-Bolshevik one.”

A couple days after Torba’s endorsement, Masters claimed he didn’t know Torba either, in a very familiar, cut-and-paste statement to the Arizona Mirror:

“I’ve never heard of this guy and I reject his support… The reason I’ve never heard of him is because he’s a nobody, and nobody cares about him except the media.”

In a since deleted post, Torba posted on Gab, "Blake Masters knows exactly who I am." On August 9th, Jewish Insider obtained an audio recording of a nearly 3-min Twitter Spaces Live conversation between the two in January.

More of The Whackadoodle 10 to come!


ICYMI:

Mike’s Midterm Tsunami of Truths:

Truth #1: The Campaign

Truth #2: Even a kid from 4th hour Trig class can beat this crowd

Truth #3: The Haters, the Bigots and the Supremacists Always Lose in the End

Truth #4: Introducing The Whackadoodle 10

Truth #5: Trump is not the Big Bad Wolf. But he is very afraid of You.

Truth #6: The Easy-to-Digest Republican Party Platform

Truth #7: Biden, Don’t F**k with Me

Truth #8: If you’re not registered, you can’t Roe, Roe, Roe the Vote!

Truth #9: Why will we win? Because the American people hate fascism.
 
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The reason we’re going to win in November is because the other side is a bunch of losers. Big losers. Bad losers. Sore losers. 

And everything they’re doing right now is setting themselves up to lose again. Big Time. 

Aside from the examples above, consider this one overwhelming fact:

The Republicans have lost the popular vote in SEVEN of the last EIGHT Presidential elections. That means in the last 34 years, since George the First was elected in 1988, they’ve only won the popular vote ONCE(George W in 2004, and only by one state)! That’s how badly the majority of the American people do not want the Republicans running this country.

Only because of the slave states’ demand for the Electoral College — and the Republicans’ #1 job of gerrymandering and voter suppression — do we even have to still deal with their misogyny, their destruction of Planet Earth, their love of guns and greed, and their laser-focused mission to bury our Democracy.

In the 2018 midterms, despite the Democrats receiving over 18 million more votes than the Republicans received for their Senate candidates, the Democrats remained the minority party in the Senate, holding only 47 seats to the Republicans’ 53 Senate seats. Again, the Dems LOST the Senate by winning the most votes (for our international audience still trying to figure this out — don’t. It’s not worth it). So the American public, wanting the Democrats to control the Senate, gave the Dems 59.3% of their votes, with the “winning” Republicans receiving only 39.1% of the votes. This system must be changed.

In the same 2018 midterm election, the voters gave the House to the Democrats with over 7 million more votes than House Republicans.

"So Mike, how are we actually going to win this time?" 

Because they made a mistake. They pushed too far. 

And this November, the Republicans are going to get whacked by an even larger loser mallet, wielded by the same arm of America that defeated the Confederacy in 1865, that defeated the Nazis in 1945, and that saved our Democracy in 2020, and again on January 6th, 2021. 

Because that’s who we are. The side the majority of America sides with. 

The winners. 

Write it on your mirror! And stay in that mindset for the next 42 days. 

SIX WEEKS TO VICTORY!

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(NOTE: An earlier version of this Tsunami Truth used the word “spermicide” when it should have said “sperm.” I’ve also updated a few more points in case you want to give it a fresh read!)

There are so many ways the Republicans are trying to help the Democrats win in November, it almost takes your breath away. Perhaps they are so cocksure of their own prowess, including their special powers to resurrect Trump in 2024. Or, maybe they feel sorry for the Dems who have often been unable to fight and win for the things they say they believe in. 

Or maybe they’re just nuts. Because why else would you purposely help your opponent win by running the biggest batch of nutters nationwide in American electoral history?

Don’t believe me? Well, my friends, to prove it I have scoured the country to find the biggest whackadoodles on the Republican side of the ballot — those candidates who are so insane, so absolutely bonkers they are handing their Democratic opponents the best early Christmas gift ever.

And, over the next 41 days, I’ll present to you…

The Whackadoodle 10

The ten best examples of why we are going to have a Blue Tsunami on November 8th — starting today with….

10. Matthew DePerno — Republican candidate for Michigan Attorney General

Matt DePerno wants to be Attorney General of Michigan because he believes Plan B, the “morning after” birth control pill, is a form of murder. That’s right. Although what the pill actually does is prevent a sperm from completing its job of fertilizing an egg, DePerno is the first anti-abortion activist I’ve met who believes that “life” doesn’t begin at conception — he insists it begins BEFORE conception and it should be against the law for anyone to interrupt a sperm on its way to do its “job.” For DePerno, potential fertilization is “life” and preventing it should be a crime. I know, right now your head is spinning reading this and you’re thinking, “what’s next — having a period (the loss of what could’ve been a potential baby!) is a felony?”

To make himself even more clear, here’s what DePerno said at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Texas last month:

“You gotta figure out how you ban the pill from the state,” DePerno said. “But you have to stop it at the border. It would be no different than [banning] fentanyl. The state has to ban it, and it should be banned.”

Comparing a safe and legal birth control pill to a deadly synthetic opioid like fentanyl — when synthetic opioids killover 150 people every day in this country — is a sign of madness. And one more step by a man seeking public office so he can control the reproductive organs of the majority gender. 

But DePerno doesn’t stop there. He’s a class-A bigot and gay-hater. His Democratic opponent, the incumbent Michigan Attorney General, Dana Nessel, is a lesbian. And that, according to DePerno, makes her dangerous and a threat to our children. 

Gay-haters often accuse LGBTQ+ citizens of being on a mission to “groom” young people into “turning gay.” DePerno calls Attorney General Dana Nessel “Michigan’s Groomer General.” In an August tweet attacking Nessel for being a lesbian “groomer,” DePerno also displayed the white supremacist’s symbol of Pepe the Frog.

DePerno is running on the trifecta platform of hate toward women, gays and Black citizens. To help him out, Trump is traveling to Michigan this Saturday to hold a rally for DePerno and other Michigan Republican candidates (all of them election deniers) at Macomb County Community College in suburban Detroit.

And if all of this wasn’t enough, DePerno is also one of the top lawyers in the country who’s been filing one losing lawsuit after another to overturn the 2020 election.

DePerno filed his first lawsuit alleging voter fraud three weeks after the election, laying the blame on the Dominion Voting Systems machines, and asking the judge to allow him to take pictures of the vote tabulators in Antrim County, MI.

Months later, he filed another lawsuit claiming voter machine fraud in Michigan and sent subpoenas to at least 8 county clerks demanding access to their voting equipment, along with ballots, logs, and election tapes. Some of these counties didn’t even use Dominion voting machines.

And now DePerno finds himself under investigation by a special prosecutor in Michigan as to whether he and others, including Rudy Giuliani’s nutcase protégé Sidney Powell, illegally tampered with voting machines.

This insanity and other conspiracy theories have turned the majority of Michiganders against DePerno. And to our good fortune, as luck would have it, in addition to DePerno’s bid in Michigan, 10 out of 30 attorney general races nationwide have a Republican election denier on the ballot! A think tank report also found that election deniers will be on the ballot this Roevember in half of the gubernatorial races, and 44% of the races for secretary of state.

And in Alabama, Arizona and Michigan – GOP election deniers are running for all three top positions.

Hallelujah and Praise Jesus and all the unfertilized eggs! Thank you Trumpster Republicans for helping us win come November. By putting up candidates whom the majority of Americans find to be repulsive and crazy, you’ve sent them running to vote for the Democrat — or they will just stay home and not vote at all. Your candidates may appeal to your base, but there are millions upon millions more of us than them. And by turning moderate Republicans and independents against you, you’ve made us even bigger. How will we ever repay you? Maybe by (when our side has true power) making sure all of you have great health care, a cleaner environment, a living wage and your children being taught the true history of race and racism in America! 

Think of it as good grooming.

(Stayed tuned in the coming weeks here on my Substack for the other 9 top Republican whackadoodles running for office!)

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Dear Governors DeSantis and Abbott 

 

First off, thank you for liberating thousands of newly arrived human beings from the hellhole the rest of America knows as “Texas.”  

I’m sure most of them, when they fled the terror and poverty of their own countries to come to the land of the free in Texas, had no idea they were going to a new place of terror, a place led by men devoid of conscience, a state run by bigots and idiots too stupid to know how to a) build a modern energy grid, and b) figure out how to hook that grid up to the rest of the country’s grid so they wouldn’t freeze to death in the winter.  

These new immigrants also probably hadn’t heard that, long before the Supreme Court’s ruling in June, Texas politicians had already legalized the removal of human rights from women and in doing so, made them second-class citizens. 

And I’m certain they had no clue just how unsafe their children would be in a state that hands out assault weapons like candy and then, as their own 10-year-olds are being slaughtered with said guns, 400 “law enforcement” officers show up and are too chicken-shit to risk their own lives to save them. In Texas, why on earth would you put yourself at risk to save achild?!!

Esteemed Governors, you’ve done a great service to these new arrivals by getting them out of Texas. They probably don’t know that in the rest of America there’s not a single person who ever thinks to themself, “Oh my God, I can’t wait to move to Texas!”   

And Governor DeSantis of Florida — what a mensch you are! These people aren’t even in Florida! Yet you’re using Florida taxpayers’ money to send private jets to Texas to give free rides for homeless people to go to Martha’s Vineyard! Wow! How do the rest of us sign up for this?! 

Governor Abbott, I know you’ve been criticized for “kidnapping” these penniless, frightened humans and their babies and herding them onto busses for a 30-hour transport to New York City, Chicago, DC and Massachusetts where you just randomly drop them off, no advance notice to local agencies who might be able to help them by making sure they have food and a place to sleep and making sure that they are safe. I get why you don’t want more of “these people” in your state. In the last decade you’ve now become our sixth non-white state — along with New Mexico (63.5% non-white), Hawaii (78.4% non-white), Maryland (52.9% non-white), Nevada (54.1% non-white), and California (65.3% non-white), plus the District of Columbia (62.1% non-white)* — where the majority of your citizens are not caucasian.  

I mean, when one thinks of Texas, you think of a state packed with good ol’ boys, rednecks, white on white, shit-kickin’ boots and country music.  

But the statistics don’t lie and today white people are now the official minority in Texas. I don’t care how many beer-soaked BBQs or hee-haw rodeos you have, or how many black men you drag down a country road on a rope tied to your trailer hitch, the plain truth is that 61.2% of Texas is now Hispanic, Black, Asian, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, or American Indian/Alaska Native. In 2022, these groups combine to make up the vast majority of the Texas population.  

So from now on when people hear the word “Texan,” they need to immediately think Megan Thee Stallion (Houston), not Billy Bob Bibb (numerous Billy Bobs throughout TX). Think Selena Gomez (Grand Prairie, TX), not Louis Gohmert (Tyler, TX). Patrick Mahomes (Tyler, TX) and Jamie Foxx (Terrell, TX), Simone Biles (Spring, TX) and Nelly (Spring, TX), Eva Longoria (Corpus Christi, TX) and Forest Whitaker (Longview, TX). Oh, and Beyoncé. She’s from Houston.  

And she does wear shit-kickin’ boots. 

So I get it, Gov. Abbott. This has been a scary transition for you and your fellow whiteys. The writing is on the wall. You are maybe just one election cycle away from losing power — and Texas becoming a Blue state.  

But if you think you can bus your way out of this racial flip by shipping as many Latinos north as possible, I hate to tell you, there aren’t enough unmarked busses in El Paso or private jets on loan from your buddy in West Palm Beach to haul out millions of Brown and Black people from the Lone Star State to your new detention camps in the frozen North in order to make your state majority-white again.  

Of course, it’s obviously not the same as loading Jewish families into cattle cars 80 years ago, but we get it. 90% of these refugees you’ve snatched and shipped off are all Catholic. And because we in the North were taught the true history of race in America (teachings which you and Gov. DeSantis have now made illegal), we know that this country’s KKK ancestors hated one group nearly as much as they did Black people — and that was the Catholics. I should know.  

The local Klan in 1916 burned a cross in my grandparents’ yard because my grandfather, a Protestant, married my grandmother, a Catholic. Oops! What do you think this looks like to the rest of us when you round up tens of thousands of Catholics and ship them like cargo to places where many may soon freeze to death? Like I said, we get it. (It’s just too bad that both of you as Catholics don’t even know your own history. That your race hatred is the same as your self-hatred as Catholics is disheartening and revelatory.) 

 

I guess this is the unintended gift you’ve given the country, by showing your true contemptible and cruel selves to a couple hundred million voters just weeks before a historic election. You do know, don’t you, that the majority of Americans, though often slow on the uptake and occasionally easily misled, are, at their core, good souls, people with a conscience, people who hate to see others mistreated, harmed or not being given a fair shot at the “American Dream” like everyone here deserves to have.  

And that they are watching your disgraceful actions and your promise of more of this if more Republicans are elected in November. Thank you for squarely putting the Republican label on this treachery. For the life of me, I’ll never be able to explain why you would purposely lose an election and bury your beloved Party.  

Oh sure, you’ll still have 65 million Americans who will get all hot and excited watching you kick the “colored” onto a curb a thousand miles away. But, thanks to your piss-poor schools, you still can’t do the math — so let me help you. There are nearly 100 million of us, about 65 million of you, and of the other 90 million who don’t vote, the majority lean toward us. That means we hugely outnumber you, which means you will never catch up. And as soon as we stop your gerrymandering and election suppression, you will be done.  

Over. Out. (But please note, as this is a love letter to you: As soon as we dethrone your ass, we will see to it that your children have the best schools and the women in your states will be treated like 1st class citizens who hold true power, especially economic power. You will lose elections, but the lives of your people will get much better.) 

One final thing I want to share with you, just in case you’re feeling any shame or regrets for putting thousands of Brown human beings on a bus to oblivion. Every day now as these abused and hungry souls have arrived here in our tree-hugging, gay-loving Blue states over these past weeks, hundreds of us have shown up to welcome them, to roll out our version of the red carpet with meals and a place to stay, warm clothes, a loving hand and a kind smile.  

We are finding homes for them. There are so many job openings here they will all soon have work if they want it and money in their pockets. New York City has already enrolled thousands of their children in one of the finest public school systems in the country. There’s an army of translators to help them communicate (because up here in WokeVille, lots of non-Spanish speaking people learn to speak… wait for it…. Spanish!). And on any given day, as soon as the city learns of a new arrival of a Texas bus dumping humans on a street corner (or in the driveway of our Black Vice-President’s home in DC), a team of health professionals are dispatched to go greet them and help them with any and all health issues they may have. It’s a beautiful thing to see. Literally, an unknown street corner in Hell’s Kitchen immediately looks like it’s been transformed into a Canadian free health clinic.  

That’s how we roll up here in our Sanctuary Cities — providing sanctuary from you. You see, many of us have read the Bible you claim to have read. Most of us don’t go to church, but we’re pretty sure we’re doing What Jesus Would Do. You like to ask that question a lot. Too bad you never answer it. So we will — and do — answer it for you (even though many/most of us don’t even “believe” in him). Weird, isn’t it?

Thank you for our wonderful new neighbors! You don’t have to kidnap or trick them into getting on your cattle cars. Just show them how we treat people up here. Trust me, it’s far from perfect. So many problems here to solve. But we will love all whom you send here.  

Because I’m convinced that by saving them from having to live in a state that forces their young to believe the Earth was formed in 7 days, one of these new youngsters may grow up here to find the cure for cancer, invent a better, cleaner way to live, create a new genre of exciting music, or be the one who leads us away from war and greed, writes a poem we all want to recite, bakes a better strawberry pie or, perhaps, encourages us to forgive you, Governors Abbot and Desantis, for how you treated them, and to welcome you back someday to the Thanksgiving table. 

And maybe some of us can convince, if not the two of you, then a few of your lost followers to come back to sanity and join us in helping to create the better America we’ve never really had.  

Yours, 

Michael Moore 

 

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Friends, 

 

Imagine, if you will, for just one moment, a United States Congress — the House and the Senate — without a single Republican holding office.  A party of traitors that the American people simply vote entirely out of office. Poof. Gone. History.  

We’ve done it before, voting out and ending entire political parties. Other democracies have voted every right-winger out of office. Sometimes, the only way to save yourselves is to crush the enemy who is hell-bent on crushing you.  

Thanks to a Supreme Court that Trump packed with religious zealots, they issued an edict on June 24th that sealed their doom and the end of the Republican Party as we know it. 

Here’s how to make sure they reap what they have sown — less than 10 weeks from today… 

Listen and share. 

— Mike 

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Friends,  

Imagine, if you will, for just one moment, a United States Congress — the House and the Senate — without a single Republican holding office.  A party of traitors that We’ve done it before, voting out and ending entire political parties. Other democracies have voted every right-winger out of office. Sometimes, the only way to save yourselves is to crush the enemy who is hell-bent on crushing you.   

Thanks to a Supreme Court that Trump packed with religious zealots, they issued an edict on June 24th that sealed their doom and the end of the Republican Party as we know it.  

Here’s how to make sure they reap what they have sown — less than 10 weeks from today…  

— Mike

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Friends,  

Four years before the FBI’s visit, I conducted my own unannounced raid on Mar-a-Lago.  

The security there was total shit, so I had my way for a good quarter of an hour. (Had I known what he was hiding there, I could’ve carried out anything I wanted!)  

What I experienced there gave me much pause for thought on the way home…  

— Mike  

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Friends,  

After a short summer break spent basking in the glow of a Zoom screen and strategizing with people across the country to defeat the Republicans this Roevember, I returned to the Rumble podcast studio last night!  

Topics for today’s episode include the Biden student debt relief announcement and something I’ve been wondering about for years — why must the younger students return to school in the middle of summer?  

Have a listen — and please share!  

— Mike  

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Friends, 

Last week Pope Francis visited Canada to apologize -and seek forgiveness for the crimes committed by the Catholic Church against the indigenous peoples of Canada. He called that practice of Christianity “evil.”

papamoore11

On the first day of his visit, I received an email from one of Canada’s most well known and beloved Native Canadians, the folksinger Buffy Sainte Marie. In her message, she explained why an apology isn’t enough.

So in this episode of Rumble, I ask the Pope (whom I’ve met) to grant indigenous people everywhere a Papal Decree that’s long overdue. 


— Mike 

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Friends,   

OMG! We are not in Kansas anymore. And neither is Kansas!

Just a few hours ago, the unthinkable happened — the citizens of the State of Kansas, one of our reddest and most Republican states, voted in an overwhelming landslide by nearly 20 points to keep abortion legal and available to all women! Let this be the word and the warning that goes out to all who seek to take any rights away from women:

  

YOU will not succeed, and you will be defeated in this fall’s election.

  

Voters in Kansas came out in droves on Tuesday to tell the Supreme Court where they could go. Their message from Kansas and the challenge to the rest of us is clear: We have 3 months to work as hard as we can to save our Democracy. We demand that Democrats sign a pledge to make Roe v Wade the law of the land — and to eliminate the filibuster.  

All Republicans who voted against certifying the legal results of the 2020 election must go to wherever traitors go.   

Please give this 14-minute emergency podcast of mine a quick listen right now — and please share it with others! If you normally don’t listen to podcasts, please just this oncclick the play arrow - if only to lift your spirits during this dark time.

— Mike  

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Friends, 

OMG! 

We are not in Kansas anymore. And neither is Kansas!

 

Just a few hours ago, the unthinkable happened — the citizens of the State of Kansas, one of our reddest and most Republican states, voted in an overwhelming landslide by nearly 20 points to keep abortion legal and available to all women! Let this be the word and the warning that goes out to all who seek to take any rights away from women: 

 

YOU will not succeed, and you will be defeated in this fall’s election.

 

Voters in Kansas came out in droves on Tuesday to tell the Supreme Court where they could go. Their message from Kansas and the challenge to the rest of us is clear: We have 3 months to work as hard as we can to save our Democracy. We demand that Democrats sign a pledge to make Roe v Wade the law of the land — and to eliminate the filibuster. All Republicans who voted against certifying the legal results of the 2020 election must go to wherever traitors go. 

Please give this 14-minute emergency podcast of mine a quick listen right now — and please share it with others! If you normally don’t listen to podcasts, please just this once click the play arrow - if only to lift your spirits during this dark time. 

— Mike

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Punk and anarchism are inextricably linked.

 

The connection between them is expressed in the anarchistic rhetoric, ethics, and practices of punk, and in the huge numbers of activist anarchists who were first politicised by punk. 

To be sure, this relationship is not straightforward, riven as it is with tensions and antagonisms—but its existence is irrefutable. This article looks back to ‘early punk’ (arbitrarily taken as 1976-1980), to identify the emergence of the anarchistic threads that run right through punk’s (ever advancing) history. 

However, it must be stressed that any claim to being ‘definitive’ or ‘complete’ is rejected here. Punk, like anarchism, is a hugely diverse and multifarious entity. Too often, authors leaning on the crutch of determinism reduce punk to a simple linear narrative, to be weaved through some fanciful dialectic. In opposition to this, Proudhon’s concept of antimony is employed to help contextualise punk’s beguiling amorphousness.

More, HERE

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Michael Moore  

 

XXVIII AMENDMENT   

SECTION 1.   

 

The inalienable right of a free people to be kept safe from gun violence and the fear thereof must not be infringed and shall be protected by the Congress and the States. This Amendment thus repeals and replaces the Second Amendment.  

 

SECTION 2.   

 

Congress shall create a mandatory system of firearm registration and licensing for the following limited purposes: (a) licensed hunters of game; (b) licensed ranges for the sport of target shooting; and (c) for the few who can demonstrate a special need for personal protection.   

All who seek a firearm will undergo a strict vetting process with a thorough background check, including the written and confidential approval of family members, spouses and ex-spouses and/or partners and ex-partners, co-workers and neighbors. A mental health check will also be required. There will be a waiting period of one month to complete the full background check.   

 

SECTION 3.   

 

Those who meet all the requirements for the restricted gun owners groups and successfully pass the background check must take a firearms safety class and pass a written test on an annual basis.   

 

SECTION 4.   

 

The minimum age for the restricted groups who can own a firearm is 25 years old. Renewal and review of the firearms license will occur on an annual basis.   

 

   

SECTION 5.   

 

Congress will stipulate and continually update the limited list of approved firearms for civilian use, including weapons in the future that are not yet invented. The following firearms are heretofore banned:  

  • All automatic and semi-automatic weapons and all devices which can enable a single-shot gun to fire automatically or semi-automatically;  

   • Any weapon that can hold more than six bullets or rounds at a time or any magazine that holds more than six bullets;  

   • All guns made of plastic or any homemade equipment and machinery or a 3D printer that can make a gun or weapon that can take a human life.  

 

SECTION 6.   

 

Congress shall regulate all ammunition, capacity of ammunition, the storage of guns, gun locks, gun sights, body armor and the sale and distribution of such items. No weapons of any kind whose sole intention is the premeditated elimination of human life are considered legal. Congress may create future restrictions as this amendment specifically does not grant any American the “right” to own any weapon.    

 

SECTION 7.   

 

Police who are trained and vetted to use firearms shall be subject to comprehensive and continuous monitoring and shall be dismissed if found to exhibit any racist or violent behavior.  

 

SECTION 8.   

 

Persons already owning any of the above banned firearms, and who do not fall into the legal groups of restricted firearms owners, will have one month from the ratification of this Amendment to turn in their firearms for destruction by local law enforcement. These local authorities may organize a gun buy-back program to assist in this effort.  

(The above constitutional amendment was written by Michael Moore of Michigan and presented to the 117th United States Congress on July 11, 2022)  

 

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50 years ago today, I became the youngest-ever elected official in the state of Michigan, the first 18-year-old to do so. I was one of just a handful of 18-year-olds across the country to be voted into office after the recently-passed amendment to the U.S. Constitution lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.   

I know what you’re thinking — fifty years ago?! What were you, 3? Indeed, the years have been, if not kind, they’ve left me my hair. Thank you, years.   

The idea of running for the Board of Education was sparked on the day the assistant principal at my public high school grabbed me from behind, ordered me to bend over, and then, with a piece of wood that resembled a cricket bat the Marquis de Sade would have used, he beat me in front of a cafeteria full of 400 students, too many of whom enjoyed watching. He beat me six times. My crime? My shirt tail was not tucked in. That’s it. Back in the day, that was all it took for an act of state-sanctioned violence by an adult against a student in school.   

When I got home, I picked up that day’s newspaper and a headline caught my attention: “School Board President Retiring; Election in June.” It didn’t take me more than a few seconds to finish my Butterfinger and decide that I must run. I called the city clerk to see if 18-year-olds could now also be elected to office. “Yes,” she replied. “You’ll need to get 20 voters to sign your petition to run.”  

Twenty? That’s it? I knew twenty stoners who’d sign anything I put in front of them. I hopped on my Motebecane 10-speed, rode down to pick up the official ballot petition, and an hour later I was back from “Stoner Park” behind the shuttered movie theater with my 20 signatures — and a political life of sorts was born. I knocked on every door in the school district, some of them twice, and on Election Day, June 12, 1972, out of a field of eight candidates, I came in first. It made a lot of news because no 18-year-old had ever been elected to anything. The victory was achieved through the hard work and campaigning of hundreds of high school students who wanted their voices heard. We spray painted our own yard signs. We marched around town. A group of band students got someone to drive them all over town as they played rock and jazz in the back of a pick-up truck that was painted with signs that said “I LIKE MIKE!” We wanted an end to corporal punishment, an end to our segregated and protected white enclave, and an end to the Army recruiting for the Vietnam War at our high school. We also wanted the cafeteria declared a health hazard. We demanded students not be expelled if caught smoking cigarettes, and we wanted to stop being told what to wear. Or to tuck in our shirts.

I decided not to leave my town to attend the University of Detroit to study journalism as planned. Instead, I chose to stay and turn the part-time job of school board member into a full-time job of disrupting the assembly line of education that churned out robotic students who were taught to obey authority, question nothing, and be rewarded for their conformity and complacency. The local Republicans controlled the power structure so I wanted to bring that down, too.   

I was lucky while in high school to be taught by young, lefty teachers, mostly between the ages of 22-30. Most of the priests and nuns at our Catholic Church in town were anti-war, anti-racist, forward thinking. Some of them played guitar.   

My parents and grandparents taught us kids the importance of helping others, of being kind, to stand up for who we were.   

All of this, as I look back, eventually led me to run for office and to try and right some wrongs. Within the first year I convinced the Board to remove the assistant principal who beat me. He later became a cop, but, you already knew that. To this day, I still don’t tuck in my shirt.   

I tell this story mainly to encourage some of you, all of you, that it doesn’t take much to be engaged, to get involved. Even a kid can do it. We are at a point that if we all don’t push through our cynicism, dump our hopelessness and get off the couch, we are going to witness the end of our Democracy and the chance to turn that thing we call “life, liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness” into a reality for everyone.   

It starts by going to a March For Our Lives Rally yesterday, or a Women’s March the day the Supreme Court extinguishes one more right.   

It starts by you running for local office. What are you waiting for?  

It starts with watching the prime time January 6th hearing from last Thursday night (C-Span link) and telling everyone you know what you learned.   

It starts with you understanding the power you already have — and using it. We are the majority.   

Finally, to anyone who voted for me 50 years ago today — thank you! Let’s hope sometime soon I get a chance to vote for you.   

— Michael “I LIKE MIKE” Moore

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Friends,

When you do what I do, you need someone in your corner who is willing to fight for you because the system is set up to make sure your voice isn't heard. Morton Janklow was one of those in my corner.

Today I honor my friend, and literary agent who passed away 12 days ago, just a few days short of his 92nd birthday. For the past 27 years, Mort fought to make sure my books were available to millions, and my words were left uncensored — despite some incredible odds.

Give a listen to my brief remembrance of what he meant to me and how he helped to save “Stupid White Men” from the Murdoch pulper.

— Mike

Friends, 

I’m finding it difficult to write this message today. 

This week was another sick celebration of the American way. And all week I have been haunted by this unanswered question… 

What is the number?  

You know the number I mean.  

I have always promised to be honest with you, and on this episode of Rumble, I must share some very bad news about what I think comes next — not because I want to scare you, but because it is crucial that we are honest with ourselves right now and I believe you can handle it. You must handle it, because I also believe we can do something about it. 

Please Listen.

— Mike 

This morning a woman stopped me on the street. She told me, quite plainly, that she had given up all hope. “Maybe there’s a single thread of it left. But that’s it. And that thread can no longer hold me up.” 

I tried to give her a half-dozen reasons of why not to sink into her despair. But she’d have none of it. After two years of living in isolation, a lost custody battle, a friend slain by Covid and now a week of Buffalo, Alito, and the landlord jacking the rent by 20%, she saw no light at the end of the tunnel. I didn’t try to dissuade her. That would be cruel when I, too, couldn’t see much of a light either on this particular gloomy morning.  

“Hey,” I said to this total stranger, “let’s get on a plane and head to New Zealand! I hear they’re happy down there. Or Iceland! We can be at JFK in 40 minutes.  Or how ‘bout that fruit stand over there? We could eat a peach or a pear. A pear always reveals the truth! A peach could hold eternal happiness!” 

She looked at me as if I were mad, and perhaps I was, but I’d reached my limit of listening to the overwhelming cacophony of resignation that surrounds me and you and all of us these days. Sometimes, as that kid said in Risky Business, “sometimes you just gotta say, ‘what the fuck.’” And head out to JFK and get on the next plane going anywhere. This life needs to get shaken up — and fast! Even if the next flight is to Bakersfield. 

At that moment I realized I’d left in one ear one of my buds from my little square iPod (now discontinued by Apple, this week, forever) —and here, in this last remaining iPod shuffle on Earth, was just the song she and me and all of you needed to get us to stand up, snap out of it and start singing and acting right now like our lives depended on it — because, like it or not, we’re in the best and biggest fight of our lives — and there’s so damn many of us and that’s why we CAN NOT lose now! 

I gave her the buds so she could hear Peter, Paul and Mary sing Pete Seeger’s and Lee Hays’ “If I Had a Hammer.” And then I said rather loudly so she could hear, “If you sing along, all trouble will disappear!” 

And then I just started belting it out… 

Hammer! 

Bell! 

Song! 

Justice! 

Freedom! 

Love!

And then she joined in! 

And on these crazy streets of New York City, it probably looked like the sanest thing anyone had seen all year.  

(I dedicate this song today to the hundreds of thousands who marched in the 400 rallies on Saturday, to the victims of white supremacy in Buffalo (also on Saturday), and to anyone who needs a song to sing right now about the love we share with all our brothers and sisters, everywhere.)

 
dogtrfc01
 

Escritora, Compositora, Novelista & Guionista 

 

thedtnail

Edith Cervantes


Edith es Doctora Honoris Causa. Igualmente, escritora, compositora, novelista y guionista.  Escritora con una destacada trayectoria de títulos publicados como: La trilogía de La Mujer de las Tormentas Parte I y 2. Noches Púrpura, Las Ninfas Del Pantano, Esencia, creencia consecuencia, Una Entidad Llamada Miedo, entre otros. 

 

Doctora Honoris Causa y Miembro de La Legión de Honor Nacional, Miembro de la Sociedad de Autores y Compositores de México, premiada por la GLOBAL QUALITY FOUNDATION: Premio Global Quality Award Elite en la categoría: “Mujer inspiradora del siglo XXI” , Académica y socia de la Sociedad Mexicana de Geografía y Estadística (literatura).

 

Cuenta con una gran cantidad de galardones por su trayectoria, como pionera en el género realismo mágico en nuestro país, mejor escritora contemporánea entre otros. Activista y defensora de los derechos de la mujer.

 

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Columna: MÉXICO AL DESNUDO

Por: Maestra Edith Cervantes

Tema: El inicio del dolor

Frase de la semana:“En la vida vale más llevar moretones que significan valentía que ira y miedo que significan cobardía”

 

Este es el mundo que yo ignoraba, este es el mundo que nadie te dice que existe, este el mundo que te quita las ilusiones y te hunde para que no veas su realidad que también es nuestra realidad, es un mundo de dolor para el que vive, ha vivido y se encuentra inmerso en sus propias reglas, unas reglas en las que el poderío de unos cuantos deciden por ti, por mí y por todos, un poderío que se transforma en la peor pesadilla de quien son elegidos para torturar, hasta dejarlos sin rastro de su existencia, un poderío mezclado entre las tres vertientes de delincuencia, los cuellos blancos manchados de sangre, los que en el nombre dios cometen toda clase de sanguinarios atropellos utilizando la sotana para atraer a sus víctimas y los empapados de sangre protegidos por los cuellos blancos, al tiempo que reciben el perdón y la bendición de los de sotana.

 

5cb6057e70c4d 

 

De una manera u otra nadie está a salvo de esas bestias, de quienes hipócritamente saquean nuestro país, inmiscuyéndose más y más cada día para engrosar más sus cuentas, sus bolsillos y su podrida vida, de la que cada día su hedor contagia a su alrededor involucrándolos en su incurable enfermedad de hambre de más poder y más dinero, y en ese tenor, se llevan millones de vidas a su paso, destruyendo familias, sepultando hogares, y riéndose de las lágrimas maternales que enloquecen al encontrar una respuesta nula y en muy pocas ocasiones la “oportunidad” de reconocer el cadáver de su ser querido.

 

Esto es lo que vivimos, en esto nos hemos convertido, en solapadores de delincuentes que ostentanhumildad y en realidad mueven los hilos para infringir el miedo deuna sociedad que cada día está más cansada y les cuestiona.

 

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Columna: MÉXICO AL DESNUDO

Tema

Un nuevo gobierno en México, el inicio de una dictadura.

 

En el año 2019, recién iniciado, un fenómeno atrapa las mentes, las somete a los peores peligros existentes e inadaptados males de una sociedad corrompida por el odio, la avaricia y el poder.

 

EU7pGy8XgAAnnu7

 

Una vida frustrada, malévola y llena de odio, así es como defino al mandatario Andrés Manuel López Obrador. Con una campaña política extendida por veinte años, de los que no se sabe de donde obtuvo recursos para sostenerla, ya que viajo por cada rincón del país mexicano, argumentando el apoyo del “pueblo bueno” como el hipócritamente llama. Recursos desconocidos, venta de sus libros, que, siendo realistas, NO ES CREÍBLE para quienes somos escritores y sabemos como es la realidad sobre la distribución y comercialización de libros en nuestro país.

 

He dicho vida, si vida, aunque suene incongruente, pero pues de alguna manera se le tiene que llamar a las historias dizque comunes, más bien yo las llamo comunistas y populistas, que son cotidianas que se desarrollan paso a paso y lentamente como algo interminable, como algo inevitable, como algo necesario, como algo que lentamente y paulatinamente va ocurriendo día a día, noche a noche.

 

Las quimeras apoderándose de los transeúntes que bostezan sin parar, otros hablan sin sentido, caminando en apariencia muy seguros hacia dónde van; la misma directriz, las mismas vestimentas, el mismo rostro desencantado ante la continuidad de una política desconfiable e irresponsable. Reacciones nulas de los mexicanos, al cruzar a un mundo que es único entre lo real y lo irreal de la concurrida mañanera, por aduladores ya que los que cuestionan, son oponentes y neoliberales para este irracional ser humano López. 

 

Un destierro de almas perdidas e insatisfechas, olvido de seres que se envuelven más y más, y difícilmente pueden abandonar su posición dentro de ese pasaje aparentemente fácil, en donde la compra de votantes se disfraza de programas sociales, como ayuda a los más pobres, en el que van abandonando su juventud, olvidando sus valores, y su pérdida de dignidad por completo, sueños que en cierta ocasión sin duda alguna tuvieron, anhelando su propia libertad genuina, añorando lo que un día pudo ser y sin darse cuenta se les escapó de sus propias manos, cuerpos aparentemente vivos pero que son inertes ante la realidad de sus deplorables vidas;  nadie muestra arrepentimiento o dolor alguno, viven en una fantasía lúgubre e insustancial; aunque para ellos sea realidad absoluta, o ya sea su verdadera identidad que brota y desborda a flor de piel, desde los pensamientos más ambiguos y de sueños rotos e inalcanzados;  como la mirada hiriente de cada mujer frente  al espejo, que no se atreve a mirarse fijamente para seguir en el abismo de su propio engaño;  como la sonrisa fingida que te quema el pecho por dentro y te muestras en aparentemente alegría,  como el ardor del llanto entre las almas corrompidas pidiendo clemencia, disfrazadas de arrogancia , que sólo son temor, horror y miedo a mostrarse quiénes son, quiénes fueron y quienes pretenden ser. 

 

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Columna: MÉXICO AL DESNUDO

Tema:

LA ESTIGMATIZACIÓN DE LA MUJER DENTRO DE LA SOCIEDAD.

 

Frase de la semana:

“Conviértete en esa mujer que nada la limita y menos la detiene, algunos te llamarán rara, pero tu sabrás que eres invencible”

 

El estigma social se define como una referencia que diferencia a una persona o a un grupo de personas a la devaluación de estas ante los ojos de los demás o en grupos de miembros sociales dominantes. Las personas en este caso hablando de la mujer en sus distintos roles de la vida cotidiana, muchas veces es estigmatizada y por ello tiene un riesgo bastante elevado a ser víctima de la discriminación, exclusión y ostracismo.

 

mujer poderosa 600x400exit

 

En la actualidad las mujeres con mente abierta y dispuestas a conseguir sus objetivos y metas externando sus deseos de logros profesionales y personales son estigmatizadas por el simple hecho de actuar y externar  a acorde a sus pensamientos y creencias como también revelarse en contra de los pensamientos comunes y supuestos exclusivos del hombre, por lo que son mujeres que se atreven a alcanzar el éxito y sus ambiciones en sus vidas a pesar de llevar en contra la actitud retrograda de toda una sociedad que desafortunadamente  también cuenta con el rezago de pensamientos entre las mismas mujeres ya sea por su educación, por los usos y costumbres o por simple discriminación y donde más esta se encuentra latente es en el caso de mujeres autosuficientes, triunfadoras y exitosas en sus distintas profesiones o quehaceres, por lo cual, el mismo género es uno de sus principales enemigos, pues estas son tachadas despectivamente como nacas, putas, rameras, perras, etc. (CASO RECIENTE, EN LA ENTREGA DE LOS OSCARES, SE HICIERON UN SIN FIN DE BURLAS ENTRE LAS MISMAS MUJERES, SOLO POR EL HECHO DE SER MUJERES. CRITICARON SU VESTIMENTA. LEJOS DE PONERSE FELICES VER A MUJERES Y HOMBRES MEXICANOS TRIUNFANDO.) Sin tomar en  cuenta que todas somos parte de este universo y que el único "pecado" es crecer como personas, como mujeres, como profesionales, como líderes y que no solo se resisten al rechazo como tal, sino que también son mujeres guerreras que pelean arduamente día a día por sus derechos y convicciones, mujeres valiosas que se atreven a gritar mientras que otras se mantienen calladas, por lo que las primeras son ejemplo de fortaleza y rebelión aunque esto implique cargar con el estigma de mujerzuelas y todos los peyorativos que la sociedad se encarga de promover en contra de quienes SI HACEN LA DIFERENCIA.

 

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Columna: MÉXICO AL DESNUDO

Por escritora Edith Cervantes

 

Salinas Pliego tras haber sido señalado por años por el ahora presidente de México Andrés Manuel López Obrador, como parte integrante de la ya famosa frase “La magia del poder” contrario a todo lo que había hablado, le asigna un sitio relevante y lleno de comodidad como empresario y con ello la proliferación de sus negocios. Y nada menos que éste nombrado miembro del consejo empresarial del presidente de la república Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

 

gtrew1lo 

 

Siendo su vínculo más fuerte, la unión de sus respectivos mercados, con ello me refiero que por el lado de Salinas pliego sus clientes y por el lado del mandatario sus votantes, me estoy refiriendo en ambos casos LOS POBRES.

 

El 2019 sin duda un año espectacular para esta mancuerna, Salinas Pliego como ya lo dije consejero empresarial del presidente. Su riqueza aumentó 29.73% de 11 mil 100 millones a 14 mil 400 millones de dólares; esto indica que del 2018 al 2019 creció un 56%.

 

Obteniendo jugosos negocios por licitación directa, es uno de los privilegiados de la actual administración morenista.

 

Y es ahí cuando la mayoría de mexicanos nos damos cuenta, que el cambio tan mencionado, tan repetitivo y esencial en el discurso preferido de André Manuel López Obrador, solo fue para endulzar el oído de 30 millones de votantes, que creyeron en su tan trillado mensaje, sacaré a la mafia del poder y no solo eso, sino que después de 20 años el presidente sigue en campaña y repitiendo exactamente lo mismo, en el cual no podemos aplaudir ningún resultado positivo, pero si puntualizarle todos los desaciertos que están llevando a nuestro país a una recesión económica sin precedentes. Muestra de ello, el desplome del crudo.

 

Por otro lado, dicho por la revista Forbes, la mezcla mexicana de exportación se hundió a su peor nivel en la historia y registró precios negativos por barril.

 

El petróleo mexicano cayó, a -2.37 dólares por barril, un retroceso del 116% desde 14,32 dólares por tonel, de acuerdo al sitio web de Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX) Esto significa un retroceso del 116% en el petróleo mexicano.

 

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Columna: MÉXICO AL DESNUDO

TEMA:

La ideología anquilosada del mandatario Andrés Manuel López Obrador, está provocando el quiebre drástico de la economía mexicana.

 

Con su nueva iniciativa, está queriendo garantizar el poder concentrado en él y para él. Con esto evitará un contrapeso en las cámaras por las elecciones del 2021, obviamente, esta medida está basada en el desapruebo de la mayoría del pueblo, al ver los nulos resultados, así como la peor manera del manejo del país, sino la descarada y vulgar forma en que cada vez México se aleja de buenos resultados.

 

Me queda claro, que la presidencia no existe una radiografía real que nos permita crear cierta certidumbre, sino que lejos de eso, crecen las dudas.

 

Proceso causa polémica con portada de AMLO 

 

Porfirio Muñoz Ledo, está en contra de las facultades unipersonales que pretende el presidente.

 

Por medio del PID ( BANCO INTERNACIONAL DE DESARROLLO) y el CONSEJO EXICANO DE NEGOCIOS ( CMNN) La Iniciativa privada, consigue apoyos que a nuestro presidente le molesta, ya que el mismo mandatario dio la espalda a quienes sostienen el país, argumentando su CORRUPCIÓN Tal parece que a Sr. López solo le importa quedarse con su discurso en el que el neoliberalismo es culpa de todo y por todo y él como todo un mesías llega a salvar a México de ese gran pecado capital, al cual yo le llamo EL FRACASO PRESIDENCIAL.

 

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Columna: MÉXICO AL DESNUDO

Tema

La oportunidad en tiempos de crisis

Frase de la semana

“Aunque tus ramas hayan sido mutiladas, tus raíces pisoteadas, siempre darás los mejores frutos”

 

einstein 1947 

 

Albert Einstein fue además de un gran físico, un gran pensador. Considerado uno de los pensadores más importantes del siglo XX y el primer científico famoso. Autor de numerosas grandes frases para la introspección, a él se la han atribuido muchas reflexiones que en realidad no eran suyas.

 

Pero Einstein solía contener en sus afirmaciones un gran espíritu de superación personal de lucha contra el miedo, de fomento por la creatividad y de la importancia de disfrutar de la vida. Hoy os dejamos su reflexión más conocida acerca de la más temida palabra: crisis.

 

La crisis según Albert Einstein

 

“No pretendamos que las cosas cambien, si siempre hacemos lo mismo. La crisis es la mejor bendición que puede sucederle a personas y países, porque la crisis trae progresos. La creatividad nace de la angustia como el día nace de la noche oscura. Es en la crisis que nace la inventiva, los descubrimientos y las grandes estrategias. Quien supera la crisis se supera a sí mismo sin quedar ‘superado’. Quien atribuye a la crisis sus fracasos y penurias, violenta su propio talento y respeta más a los problemas que a las soluciones.

 

confinamiento 

 

La verdadera crisis, es la crisis de la incompetencia. El inconveniente de las personas y los países es la pereza para encontrar las salidas y soluciones. Sin crisis no hay desafíos, sin desafíos la vida es una rutina, una lenta agonía. Sin crisis no hay méritos. Es en la crisis donde aflora lo mejor de cada uno, porque sin crisis todo viento es caricia. Hablar de crisis es promoverla, y callar en la crisis es exaltar el conformismo. En vez de esto, trabajemos duro. Acabemos de una vez con la única crisis amenazadora, que es la tragedia de no querer luchar por superarla.”

 

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Para mas información, videos y noticias, aqui...!!!

 

752681d916d2f9178e47ded29fa66b4d

 

 

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dogtrfc01
 

 COMENTARIOS...

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EL NUEVO DIRECTOR  

 

Allá por los primeros años de la década de los sesenta, llegó a la ciudad de Villahermosa Tab., un  nuevo director de la escuela secundaria número uno, procedente del Estado de Guerrero, coincidiendo en este caso con el inicio de un nuevo ciclo escolar, y el primer lunes del año escolar, razón por la cual se llevaba a cabo el primer homenaje a la bandera nacional.  

El profesor de educación física, tomó el micrófono en las manos y decía: “fulanito…….alíneate,…. zutanito…..fórmate, …..perenganito, deja ya de estar chuchando a tu compañera……..después de estas palabras, el profesor recién llegado notó que no le hacían aprecio y el profe insistía……dejen de estar distraídos, vamos a comenzar el homenaje, y los chamacos de secundaria, nomás “estaban en la luna”.

El profesor de educación física intentó nuevamente y al ver que los alumnos, no hacían aprecio, el nuevo director, le arrebató al profe de educación física el micrófono y con voz alta, dijo “¡Con una ching….……..  se forman rapidito o ahorita mismo, les parto toditita su ma…..”!  

Al escuchar ¿j voz del nuevo director, los alumnos pusieron atención y rápidamente se formaron,  

Se acercó un profesor al nuevo director con las manos en señal de diciendo: “Con esa clase de huevos nos gusta que nos hablen aquí”.  

Luego, luego se empezó a decir que, lo enviaron para hacer renunciar a algunos flojos, que traía consigna para expulsar a algunos alumnos, que lo mandaron porque acá en Guerrero no lo aguantaban que era enojón, etc.  

Así que cuando se dio cuenta, el nuevo director, ya se le había salido una costeñada, razón por la que ya no le pudo bajar de volumen a las indicaciones que desde el primer día emitió.  

 

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La Tía  Lelo
 
 

En una ocasión un turista chilango, vino a la Costa Grande y pidió de comer en la “Ramada de Tía Lelo”, la cual tenía fama de buena cocinera, sobre todo de mariscos y pescado. Esta vez, pidió un pescado frito, la Tía Lelo, lo limpió le agregó sal. lo frio, dorado, crujiente lo sirvió. 

Después de degustarlo, pidió la cuenta, la pagó y se retiró, no sin antes, tomar nota del nombre de la propietaria y así como el sitio exacto de donde estaba ubicada. 

Al llegar a la CD MX, platicó a familiares, compañeros de trabajo, que había comido en la costa, y meses después, volvió a venir a la costa, ahora trayendo al compadre, le invitó a la Ramada de la “Tía Lelo”. 

Al llegar, le preguntó a la Tía Lelo, que como se llamaba el platillo que le había cocinado la vez anterior, contestando la tía, “pescado frito”, y dijo el cliente, pues sírvanos uno a cada uno de nosotros. 

La Tía Lelo, se fue a su cocina y empezó a preparar, los pescados fritos, los sirvió y comieron los turistas. 

Al final, el compadre solicitó la receta del platillo a la Tía Lelo, la cual dijo, “pues solo es pescado frito”, acompañado de queso de rancho, chirmole con chile costeño, crema criolla, frijoles apozónques y unas quebradas que les echó en el comal. 

Los comensales, no convencidos, preguntaron, ¿cuál era el secreto que le daba el sabor tan agradable al pescado? 

La Tía Lelo, respondió: “solo que sea el aceite, que tiene dos meses que se lo cambié.”

 

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LOS CHIRUNDOS

 

Varios paisanos, que estudiaron en Atlacomulco, Estado de México, invitaron a un profesor a vacacionar a Ometepec, y éste, fue alojado en casa de Don Rafael Cariño (†), donde el dueño de la casa, le brindó las atenciones que se merecía, entre ellas, una cama donde después de pasar una tarde amena en compañía de la familia Cariño, y después de cenar, se fue dormir. 

                           

(Para los habitantes de la costa, vivir con mosquitos, es del diario por las condiciones ambientales que se tienen) 

A la mañana siguiente, el Sr. Rafael Cariño, preguntó al huésped, ¿Cómo pasó la noche maestro?, muy mal, respondió el profesor, “porque los chirundos no lo habían dejado dormir en paz”. 

El Sr. Cariño, extrañado re interrogó al profesor diciendo: A quien se refiere?, el profesor respondió, pues a los chirundos. 

El profesor le explicó que antes de decidir viajar a Ometepec, alguno de los paisanos le dijo, que los moscos, en nuestra zona se les llama chirundos y por las noches durante esta época del año, abundan y agregó, yo semidesnudo por el calor, no sabía a quién hacerle caso, si a los chirundos o al calor.  

Don Rafael Cariño, lanzó una carcajada que sorprendió a todos en casa. 

Perdón profesor, le llamó usted, chirundos a los moscos, aquí les decimos zancudos, al tiempo que agregaba: Éstoj jíjoj de la #$%&=#, se dejquitaron con ustéj, loj maloj ratoj que algúnoj han pasado en suj clásej. 

El profesor, se dio cuenta que se refería a los mosquitos, aclarado el significado de la palabra chirundo. 

El maestro, aceptó de buen modo la broma de mal gusto que sus alumnos le hicieron.

 

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CUTUM Y CELINA (†)

 

En los años cincuenta, sesenta y setenta, la Medicina Tradicional en México se encontraba en buenas manos, Celina, una señora del pueblo, tenía una farmacia a la cual los paisanos acudían y se les vendía la medicina a la vez que también se les recetaba, por supuesto que en esa época, no había doctores en ella, y lo hacían sin licencia a la manera tradicional 

En una ocasión fue una señora a la farmacia y pidió ser atendida de cierto mal del que se quejaba. 

La Sra. Celina, la pasó a un pequeño espacio atrás del mostrador, la escuchó y le recetó algunos medicamentos que con oportunidad usó. Sin embargo, la paciente murió. 

No se sabe a ciencia cierta la causa de esa muerte y dicen que Cutum, quien era un personaje muy conocido, le dio el último trago de agua antes de morir.

De ahí se acostumbró un refrán para el buen morir, que se decía a todo aquel que manifestaba alguna dolencia  

“Que te recete Celina y que te de agua Cutúm”. 

 

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GLAFIRITA, TONO DE VACA  

 

GLAFIRA. Vivió en el Cerro de las Tablas, una comunidad negra en la Costa Chica con rumbo a Cuijla, entre terrenos fértiles por la buena humedad que le da el río.  Se encuentra a una altura de 12 metros SNM.   

De Glafirita se decía que fue tono de vaca y de esa manera se comportaba. De acuerdo a algunos testimonios, el pequeño o pequeña, tendrán ciertas características de comportamiento, semejante al animal que le corresponda  

“Cuando están chiquitos, no se da cuenta la mamá ni el papá, están tiernitos, no lo han llevado a la iglesia, antes de que lo lleven a la iglesia se lo roban en la noche, lo ponen, recostado en un camino está así y otro así, lo ponen mero en la cruz y el primer animal que pase ése ya es su tonal, así es la historia” (Juan Corcuera; Chacahua, Oaxaca, 2003)  

Podemos definir al tono en la Costa Chica como una entidad anímica que todo individuo es susceptible de recibir; se dice que se encuentra en la sangre, es transmitida por un humano tono y actúa como una ligadura mística con un animal en el monte, con el cual comparte su destino.  

La frontera entre el tono y el nahual, bastante delicada, se evidencia si consideramos que sólo algunos individuos tienen la capacidad de otorgar esta entidad anímica, el tono. Además, dichos individuos también controlan su animal en el mundo paralelo y manejan la enfermedad de monte. Son por tanto nahuales, y su representación prototípica es el curandero.  

Un día a la hora de la ordeña, Don Vidal de la Cruz Domínguez, escuchó el bufido de una vaca y dijo: “Papá, Glafira, ya se alocó.”   

Contesta don Fidel de la Cruz: Acabando de la ordeña la vamos a ver.  

Así, al terminar de ordeñar las vacas, fueron a su casa, en ese momento salía Glafira, corriendo, y la abraza don Fidel de la Cruz.  

El marido de Glafira la vio y le grita, ¡Suéltela Don Fidel!...no ve que stá reventando laj reataj?.  

Don Fidel, la soltó y la dejó ir.  

Dicen que le hicieron un remedio costeño para curarla del tono, que consistía en un “menjurje” que se hacía de la siguiente manera:  

Se disparaba una escopeta, se le llenaba el cañón con agua y de esta agua, se le vaciaba en forma de cruz, y con el resto de esta agua, un poco se regaba los sitios por donde la mujer vivía, y el sobrante lo bebía la enferma.   

Varias veces se disparaba el arma y se volvía a enjuagar con agua y se hacía el mismo proceso las veces que fuese necesario.  

Así pasó con Glafirita y,……………………………  

Arájo, compa,……….. se compuso.  

 

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UN CLAVO QUE DA VUELTA. 

 

Cierto día por la tarde, en Ometepec, Gro., después de comer, un padre de familia, se puso a arreglar unos pedazos de madera los cuales sirvieron de protección a un mueble, quitando clavos y tornillos y fue desarmando dicha estructura.  

Su pequeña hija, quien le seguía como todas las tardes a donde fuese el padre, vio como desarmaba los pedazos de madera e intentó hacer algo similar.  

Tomando el martillo que en ese momento el padre no ocupaba, y un desarmador y dijo al padre: 

Papá, dame un clavo. 

El padre tomó un clavo de dos pulgadas y se lo dio. 

La pequeña, quien apenas cumpliría los tres años de edad, le volvió a decir:  

paá dame un clavo, el padre le da uno de cuatro pulgadas y dice, ten cuidado, no te lastimes. 

La pequeña le dice ahora:  

Ese no, otro. El padre toma un clavo de seis pulgadas diciéndole, ten. 

Ahora le dice la niña, “Ese no, un clavo que da vueltas” 

Tomando un tornillo mediano, se lo da y le dice: “esos son los únicos que tengo.  

¿Pero lo que quieres es un tornillo? 

Si, respondió. Ese sí, que si da vuelta. 

 

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¡QUE COBRONA!

 

En un pueblo junto al mar situado en la Costa Chica de Guerrero, eran alrededor de las siete de la mañana de un día domingo y todo era silencio, los escolares se encontraban de vacaciones y dormían, no se escuchaba más que el zumbar de moscas, ruidos propios de la naturaleza y los propios del mar.  

Una pareja de recién casados, originarios del lugar, pernoctaron esa noche en casa de los suegros de la novia. 

Su primera noche ya como esposos. 

A esa hora, llegó el cohetero con sus materiales y productos de la artesanía de pirotecnia, proveniente del lugar donde desde hace muchas generaciones, un grupo de artesanos elaboran material pirotécnico, en Comunidad perteneciente al municipio de Ometepec, Gro. 

Dicho cohetero, preparó seis bombas, y por al escaso sol que había en ese rato, alineó los cuetes de vara (una gruesa), colocó las mechas distribuidas de forma ordenada para que en cuanto reciban los primeros rayos del sol, se sequen, separó el resto de material inflamable veinte metros aproximadamente y ahora; a esperar que el sol secara el material, mientras los recién casados se levantaban. 

Esa mañana no escuchamos tempranito el ruido de tronar cuetes de vara, como confirmación de que la novia aún era virgen, pues no tiraban cuetes, y los señores de mayor edad del pueblo, comenzaron a cuchicheaban en voz baja.   

En unos minutos el sol apareció en el horizonte, y en menos de una hora, el material, se secó. El cohetero, colocó las mechas en su sitio y ahora a esperar la señal del novio para encenderlos, pues su horario acordado fueron las 08:00 horas. 

Dieron las ocho horas, y nada, y las ocho y media y el cohetero pensó, “hasta que me voy a lucir quemando cuetes” 

Pasaron cuarenta minutos de la hora fijada y el ahora esposo, no salía.  

Dieron las ocho y cuarenta y cinco y el novio apareció, y junto a él, la esposa con párpados hinchados, ojos húmedos, pasaron frente al cohetero, el novio con cara de enojo, llevaba de la mano a la novia, casi a jalones, la condujo hacia la Presidencia Municipal, a donde solicitó a la autoridad, se mandara un “propio”, citando de manera urgente, a la madre de su ahora esposa. Luego, el esposo, se acercó al secretario del ayuntamiento y en secreto le dijo que “devolvería” a la esposa pues resultó no ser virgen. 

El “propio” acudió al domicilio de la recién desposada, entregó el citatorio y leyó el mismo a petición de la interesada y regresó con las autoridades.  

Pocos minutos después, llegó casi sin resuello la madre de la esposa del quejoso. 

Pidió una silla, la cual le acercaron al verla sudorosa, hablaba entrecortado e intentó pararse al mismo tiempo el yerno le dice: siéntese, la va a necesitar.  

El presidente Municipal quien ya había llegado a su oficina, al notar lo importante y trascendente del caso, decidió escuchar de viva voz la acusación viendo al quejoso le dice: Tiene la palabra 

El quejoso dice: señor presidente y señora, le vengo a devolver a su hija, “porque no salió señorita”. 

La madre abriendo grandes los ojos, dice: 

Arájo Eduwigej ¿ej verdáj? 

La hija no contesta y le vuelve a preguntar:¡Vije! Tes toy hablando jija de la fre gada 

Cabizbaja, sin mirar a los ojos a su madre, dice:  

Sí mamá, ej verdáj 

Arájo mihija, porqué me hacej pasaj vergüenzaj, hija de la tijnada? 

¿Qué, eso te enseñamoj loj papacej, eso me haj vijto a mí hacer algo semejante?  

La recién casada intentó algo y la madre la calla diciendo: Cállate si no querej que te deje cai, un al revej en el cajete del ojo.  

La madre de la novia toma otra copa de “fuerte”, deja pasar unos segundos y se acerca a la hija y le dice casi al oído: ¿y cuantaj vecej te alcanzó a…. usar……. en toda la noche? 

Le contesta la novia: Nomáj trej 

Dice la madre en voz baja ---hasta pa eso ej pendejo 

Mira tú, ex yerno, ¿cómo supijte que no era señorita? 

El yerno responde 

Desde la primera vez no sangró.  

Qué? Dijo la madre 

¿Así, que esaj tenemoj? La madre dijo mirando con enojo al yerno. 

Luego, levanta la voz y le dice al yerno: Erej un aprovechao, acotejao, sinvergüenza y forzador.  

Así que ¿te dijte cuenta dejde el primero? 

Ejtá diciendo que forzó doj vecej a mijita!,  ¡Eso no se vale!, dice mirando a la hija, y después al Ciudadano Presidente, ustéj lo vido señor presidente y autoridáj. 

Como dicen ujtedej, señor autoridaj, actuó, con premeditación alevosía, ventaja, brutal ferocidáj y poca madre. 

Ahora le dice a la hija en voz baja: 

Ejte recabrón se quére salij con la suya, así que cóbrale laj otraj doj, pero ¡bien caro o lo acusas orita mijmo de violación! 

Este gallo pidió polla 

Y al entrar a la cocina 

Le notó que era gallina 

En el meneo de la olla. 

Que un gallo frente a mi esquina 

Que seguía a una fina polla 

Le pidió caldo de la olla. 

La llevó hasta su cocina 

Viendo como menea 

El molinillo y lo bate 

Sabe hacer buen chocolate 

Que toda se zaraneda. 

Parece una iguana en braza 

Al menear ella el asunto 

Que si la ve algún difunto 

Por lo menoj se levanta, va y la abraza. 

 

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LA TIA RUFINA 

 

La tía Rufina Montalván,(†) quien fue asidua a los actos religiosos del templo parroquial de Santiago Apóstol, cierta ocasión fue designada para portar el estandarte de la Virgen de Guadalupe en un acto religioso, el día 12 de diciembre, día en que se levantó muy temprano para asear su calzado, revisó su falda, planchó su blusa, después revisó sus artículos para maquillaje, de tal manera que  una vez arreglada, acudió al templo y participó en el acto religioso que desarrolló sin novedades y al término  del mismo, inició camino a casa.  

Uno de los espectadores era un caballero que siempre veías vestido de forma elegante, de color blanco, Don Manuel Añorve, Sí, “el viejo” el que dicen, que después de saludarte de mano, sacaba de su bolsa del pantalón, un frasquito de donde tomaba algodón con alcohol y se limpiaba las manos, (para mí que algún brujo le dijo, que habría una Pandemia y ese procedimiento sería común en nuestra época) el que al terminar el acto le dijo: 

“Comadrita, que hermosa y que elegante, con gran marcialidad, con qué porte se veía usted llevando el estandarte”. 

¿Quién le enseñó a marchar así? porque también amerita un reconocimiento, de seguro es ó fue un militar. 

Díganos de quien se trata para solicitar a nuestras autoridades, que imparta esa técnica en nuestras escuelas. 

Pero arájo comadrita, como hay gente envidiosa, dijeron que si no habían jayado otra mujer menos lépera que usted. 

 

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EL INDITO PELÓN

 

Un día domingo, día de plaza en Ometepec, Gro., es común observar a múltiples personas provenientes de muchos lugares aledaños a Ometepec, llegan a este lugar, para vender sus productos que provienen del campo y a realizar compras de insumos necesarios para sus actividades propias del campo, además algunos se divierten en el billar local, alguna cantina o simplemente adquieren las bebidas con alcohol. 

Este caso se refiere a un indito de “Tlacuache”, como de setenta años de edad, que venía al pueblo de compras, de forma periódica, y un paisano notó que ya andaba como “tigre baleáo”a quien pensó hacerle una broma. 

Al pasar frente de su negocio establecido en la calle Vicente Guerrero, el propietario, quien se entretenía viendo pasar a los paisanos, notó que éste, ya andaba midiendo el ancho de la calle, pues pasaba de un lado a otro con el riesgo de ser atropellado por un vehículo automotor, dado que en esa misma calle se estacionan las camionetas “pasajeras” que realizan los viajes por carretera hasta Tlacoachistlahuaca, Gro. y le dice: 

¿De dónde eres pelón? 

El indito, como ya conocía lo alburero que se comportaba dicho vecino, le contesta:

  

“De la cabeza”, señor, dejando al señor, perplejo. 

 

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LA QUE VENDÍA TICAZOS

 

Cuenta el Tío Vidal de la Cruz, que allá por los años finales de 1940 o principios del año 1950, un día sábado por la mañana, bajaba al centro por la calle principal hacia el mercado municipal, como a eso de las diez de la mañana, una indita vestida con su enagua rosa mexicano, con hileras horizontales de grecas amarillas  en su parte inferior y sobre él, su tradicional huipil de múltiples colores. 

Dicha mujer vendía sus “ticazos”, (tortillas de maíz, delgada. de tamaño grande, de aproximadamente 30 cm de diámetro, tostada, de sabor natural a masa y un poco de sal o masa endulzada con panela, secas que se acostumbra comer como botana sola o queso, crema de leche, requesón y chile al gusto.) venía esperando lograr su primera venta con ellos, los tráiba en una canajta, encima del “ñagüal” que bien redondito se puso en la cabeza. 

Unos chamacos que al mismo tiempo veían pasar a “Chico Mudo”,(indigente en Ometepec, Gro. en los años sesenta, muy parecido al “Ecoloco”) le empezaron a gritar, haciéndolo enojar y éste les respondió con pedradas. (parece que no fue tan sordo). 

Una piedra, fue a dar a la frente de la indita, quien comenzó a sangrar del sitio golpeado, llorando de susto y dolor, la indita se sentó y “vido” sus “ticazos” jondeados por el suelo y el limpio huipil, manchado al frente por la abundante cantidad de sangre que suele salir en las heridas en cabeza. 

Una vecina que notó este incidente, trajo de su alacena, café negro molido, el cual colocó sobre la herida y encima un pedazo de una toalla limpia y lo presionó unos pocos minutos, cediendo la hemorragia y no hubo necesidad de colocar las telarañas que otra vecina trajo de su hogar.  

En ese momento, pasó Don Felipe Várgas (†) y al ver a la indita llorando, le preguntó sobre lo sucedido, respondiendo la indita, que a unos chamaquitos, les tiraron una pedrada en la frente y salieron “juyendo”. 

El buen hombre, sacó de su bolsillo, una moneda de cinco pesos y se la dio a la indita quien le contestó diciendo :…..oye patrón, pero ej que ese  “ticazoj”, valen diej pesoj. 

Contesta el buen Samaritano: ¡Endéja, no seaj tonta, no te los toy mercando, solo ej una ayuda. 

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EL ABONERO

 

Cierto día, un abonero le pregunta a un paisano, sobre los antecedentes de otro paisano que solicitaba mercancía con pagos a plazos y decía: 

Oye, conoces a fulano, y respondió, si, si lo conozco, y después vuelve a preguntar: ej honráo?, y responde, si, si ej honráo. 

A raíz de estas respuestas, le da mercancía fiada y pasan días y semanas y dicho cliente, no paga. 

El abonero, vuelve a decir al paisano, oye, tú me dijijtej que ese “zanca”, ej honráo, y no me paga. 

El paisano responde, arajo compa, yo te dije que era honráo, …pero…. honráo honráo, honráo….noooo. ……..como créej.  

Deja pasar otros días y va a cobrar al deudor, diciendo: Oye, tú me dijijtej que luego luego me ibas a pagar….ahora puej, cuando me vaj a pagaj y contesta diciendo:“Debo, no niego, pago, no tengo”. 

Le dice el abonero: Por eeso, zaánca, ¿cuándo me vaj a pagaj? 

El Deudor respondió: arajo puej, cuando tenga dinero 

¿y cuando vaj a tené dinero? 

Y este le contestó: taj pendejo, hajta adivino querej que sea! 

 

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LA BECERRA EXTRAVIADA  

 

A un paisano negrito se le extravió de su ganado vacuno, una becerra y tratando de encontrarla, acudió a diversas personas “que sacan de rastro”, y al no tener éxito en los siete días posteriores, escuchó a un vecino el cual le aconsejó, que debería ir a la Iglesia, a solicitar al santo, que le hiciera el milagro de ayudarle a encontrar su becerra.  

Al convencerlo el vecino, acudió por vez primera a la iglesia, a donde se introdujo con todo y caballo.  

Dentro del templo, le dice al primer Santo que vio:   

 

Arájo, Santo Crijtillo”, si tú me daj mi becerra, te la doy toda pá ti, y besando la mano en señal de la cruz, le dice: “como saber Diój”

 

Ya lo oyites tata Crijtillo, que la jallo, va a sé, toda pá ti.  

Hecha la promesa, sale al campo a sabanear el ganado y en esa misma tarde, encuentra a la becerra extraviada, toda “choca”, llena de “cuita” de la cabeza hasta la cola, la laza y se la lleva amarrada al templo con todo y su caballo jalando la becerra y ante el “Santo Crijtillo”, diciendo: tú me díjte este milagro, aquí la tenéj…………... y el santo………. no le contestó.  

Dice el negrito, ni modo mano, te la vámoj a amarrá de la centura.  

Dicho y hecho, se apeó del caballo, adentro de la iglesia y comenzó a amarrar a la becerra la cual estaba toda “neja”, haciendo un nudo ciego a nivel de la cintura del santo.   

La becerra, en cuanto sintió que se aflojó la reata, dio el jalón arrastrando al santo, en eso el negrito grita. ¡Agárrate, táta!................¡agarráte táta Crijtillo!, ¡agarráte tata Crijtillo aunque sea de la cola, no le hace que aunque te caguéj la mano!  

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LOS AEROPLANOS  

En los campos de cultivos, del Cerro de Las Tablas en “Los Bajos” comunidad de personas en mayor porcentaje son de origen Afromexicano y viven a tan solo menos de tres decenas de metros de la orilla del río Santa Catarina en terrenos prácticamente planos,  de buena humedad y a no más de veinte metros sobre el nivel de mar, Un día estaba el tío Vidal de la Cruz, quien cursaba el tercer grado de primaria, en compañía de Alfonso Patricio, un trabajador de la familia, cuidando los chilares, espantando los zanates.  

   

En esos terrenos, fue común observar, a los intrépidos pilotos de esa época, (José Luna Basurto, “Beto” Luna Basurto, “Toño”, Yuly, Bode, Eliut, etc), algunos de los cuales realizaban las labores de fumigaciones en los campos algodoneros de “Los Bajos” así como aventar volantes de propaganda en los pueblos de la Costa Chica, también volando a muy baja altura, aventaban confeti en los eventos sociales importantes, o despedían en sepelios a quienes se nos adelantaban en la partida.  

Por cierto que en su gira de candidato a la presidencia del país, casi le toca una bolsa de confeti en la cabeza al Lic. Luis Echeverría Álvarez, pues al paisano que en una avioneta lo aventaba, en un descuido se le cayó una bolsa de un kg de peso cerca de tres metros de distancia, en la tarima donde se encontraba el candidato.)  

También existió un servicio de transporte aéreo de aviones bimotores que frecuentemente volaban por los bajos. En este caso, pasó volando un avión de los que llegaban a Ometepec y en ocasiones hacían escala en la hacienda “La Petaca” y realizaban servicio de pasaje y carga de mangos de la Hacienda  

Al ver que el avión descendía al aterrizar en la hacienda La Petaca, Alfonso Patricio le pregunta al tío Vidal:   

¿Arájo” Vidal, y como vuelan ésoj animalej?  

El tío Vidal, que cursaba el tercer grado de primaria, trató de explicar al compañero, lo poco que técnicamente sabia de como vuelan los aviones.  

Si hubiese tenido el conocimiento técnico, le diría: “vuelan gracias a la actuación de una serie de fuerzas, tanto en el plano horizontal como en el plano vertical, y es imprescindible que la fuerza que se produce en el eje vertical, supere al peso del avión. Además, los motores impulsan el avión”  

Por otra parte, en el eje horizontal y gracias a los motores que expulsan gases, tiene lugar el principio de acción-reacción que provoca una fuerza hacia adelante que vence la resistencia del aire.  

Alfonso Patricio le contestó:  

“Arájo” Vidal, si Diój no pone cuidáo” ….…….le ganan  

 

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LA TIA MARIA ZAPATA. (†)  

 

La Tía María Zapata vivió en el Barrio de la Santa Cruz, sobre la calle Miguel Hidalgo, casi esquina con Cuitláhuac, donde su casa colindaba con la casa de la profesora Cecilia Díaz Gatica, (  ),se rumoraba que fue dueña de los amoríos de un distinguido ganadero. Se dedicaba a la elaboración y venta de dulces hechos en casa como: rosquitas, bocadillos de coco sabor panela, sabor leche, camotes, dulce de leche y el rico jamoncillo.  

Recorría los pueblos de la Costa Chica, sobre todo en las fechas de las diversas ferias de la Costa, “haciendo su luchita”.  

En esos tiempos, solían viajar a caballo y burros de carga, en caravanas hacia las diversas ferias como manera de protección contra los amantes de lo ajeno.  

En conjunto, se organizaban y emprendían el viaje, entre ellas: Doña Juliana Medel, conocida como “mamá Yán”, Francisca Medel, Aurora Medel, Zaida Zamora y Aurora Jiménez.  

Cierto día, se enfermó el peón que llevaba el burro con la carga, razón por la cual, consiguió a un joven negrito, “Prisciliano”, adolescente, quien le decía a doña María Zapata, “Madrina” con las buenas intenciones pero un poco irresponsable.  

A este personaje, se le extravió el burrito de carga que traían y al saber esto la tía María, envió al negrito a buscarlo.  

Prisciliano, obediente buscó por varias calles, sin embargo, no lo jalló y preguntó a los paisanos quienes “no daban razón” y así, llegó a la iglesia y estando dentro la empezó a recorrer y al ver a los santos, se asustó al estar al frente del Cristo crucificado dentro del Templo y regresó con la madrina diciendo:  

:”Arájo” madrina, yo no habría de sej “Cristillo Chicahualillo”, ni pagáo,  ahí stá “chirundoj”, sin coméj,………..y ni “chupa”.  


 
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ESCUELA PÁ DIVERSIÓN.         

                    

Hace cerca de setenta años, en  Ometepec, Gro., en una escuela primaria, de la localidad, año con año el personal docente, de intendencia y alumnos de la misma, sufrían las inclemencias del tiempo al no contar el centro educativo con el número adecuado de salones.  

De igual manera, los que habían, eran insuficientes, y con paredes sin revocar, piso de tierra,  sin servicios sanitarios, sin espacios adecuados para una educación digna, y algunos de los alumnos, recibían la enseñanza bajo la sombra de un árbol, razón por  la cual, la dirección de la escuela en coordinación con la sociedad de padres  de familia, tocaron puertas, realizaron una kermés, rifaron un refrigerador y obtuvieron recursos económicos, los cuales sirvieron para cubrir los viajes de la comisión que acudió a la SEP en la ciudad de México para solicitar de manera urgente solución total a ese caso.  

Varios años después, después de gestionar los recursos federales para la realización de obras en el municipio, por fin se recibió el dinero, se dio inicio a una obra escolar y logró la edificación de la Escuela Primaria. El presidente municipal en turno, acudió a dicho evento con la finalidad de inaugurar el nuevo edificio de reciente creación.   

Llegó a la Escuela Primaria, acompañado de algunos miembros del cabildo, saludó a las autoridades del plantel, quienes solo a dicha figura política esperaban, y de inmediato, el director de la escuela, le pidió que cortara el listón.  

Una secretaria de “buen ver” (llevaba tres tijeras, romas de la punta, ya que es requisito de los equipos de seguridad de muchos personajes políticos) se acercó al presidente municipal y le ofreció las mismas, al director del plantel y al presidente de la Asociación de Padres de Familia. El señor presidente municipal tomó las tijeras y cortó el listón al mismo tiempo que el director y el presidente de la asociación de padres de familia hacía lo mismo. La secretaria recibió las tijeras y guardó en la dirección el listón y el moño verde situado al centro.  

Se desarrolló un pequeño programa alusivo al acto y casi al final, el presidente municipal tomó la palabra diciendo:  

“Es el templo de nuestros mayores, son sus aulas venero de amor, es el nido que brinda calores, como un foco de inmenso fulgor”. Seguro el tío Isidro Añorve Morales, (†)(Autor del Himno a la Escuela Primaria Vicente Guerrero) le escribió su texto o se lo fusiló.   

Y para terminar, expresó: Yo, presidente municipal del pueblo de Ometepec, cabecera municipal del mismo nombre, declaro este día primero de junio, inaugurada esta nueva construcción, que servirá para albergar a las nuevas generaciones de estudiantes  de nuestro pueblo y que dada la gran capacidad de los profesores, saldrán de ella, mujeres y hombres mejor preparados cada vez.

Que con el paso del tiempo, volarán  como golondrinas por otros cielos y que seguramente destacarán algunos mayormente que otros y serán ellos los que lleven las riendas del país o al menos los que conformen las principales autoridades de nuestro estado o al menos , por qué no, nuestro gobernador o gobernadora, sien las tantas horas del día tal del año tal, declaro formalmente inaugurado el edificio de esta escuela y,” ahí stá pá que se diviertan.”  


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LOS DOCE PARES DE FRANCIA

 

Esta danza, es una reminiscencia de la Historia del Emperador Carlo Magno, la cual se celebra en varios estados de nuestro país y la Costa Chica de Guerrero, no es la excepción.  

El Lic. Jaime López Jiménez, distinguido investigador y escritor, cronista y originario de Ometepec, ha realizado una reseña de dicho evento de esta manera:   

“Los personajes de esta danza lucen suntuosas joyas con un vestuario elegante, llamativo y penachos elaborados con plumas auténticas. “  

“El libreto tiene muchas horas de parlamento y está escrito en verso rimado, de métricas variables, con tercetos octosílabos, versos alejandrinos y las variaciones más complejas”.  

En algunos sitios de nuestro país, se han hecho investigaciones sobre esta danza, como en Totolapan, Mor. Y se ha logrado saber que dichas danzas fueron traídas a nuestro país por El Clero en tiempos de la Colonia, con el fin de erradicar a los Moros invasores.  

El argumento de Los doce pares de Francia, según explica Francisco Omar Suástegui en su “Introducción”, recogida en el manuscrito del libreto, “trata de la batalla entre el emperador Carlomagno y sus doce pares, y el almirante Balán y sus doce caballeros turcos o mahometanos; siguiendo la trama, es fácil reconocer que es una especie de escenificación de una novela romántica o literatura de aventuras”.  

Los cristianos son 14 y sobresalen el emperador Carlomagno, Constantino de Roma, Ricarte de Normandía, Guy de Borgoña y el arzobispo Turpín. Los moros son 18 y destacan el profeta Mahoma, el mencionado Balán, Fierabrás de Alejandría y la reina Floripes, entre otros. Por supuesto, “el reto” es ganado por los primeros.  

Todo el libreto está escrito en verso rimado cuya métrica varía constantemente, desde tercetos octosílabos hasta estructuras mucho más complejas. Semejante extensión hace indispensable al apuntador, quien se desenvuelve entre los actores caminando, corriendo o en medio de las numerosas danzas que se efectúan.  

Entre otros motivos destaca el hecho de dirimir simbólicamente los antagonismos y contrastes que se presentan en toda localidad, grande o pequeña, como parte de la dinámica social, a la vez que se busca afianzar los lazos identitarios de la comunidad.

 

«Señor, ese osado caballero,   

es hijo del almirante,   

y agigantado en su cuerpo;  

el que sometió a Roma,   

con notable atrevimiento,   

robó las santas reliquias   

que por tanto nos dolemos.»  

 

Durante dichos eventos, se han producido accidentes ocasionados por el contacto de las manos principalmente con las espadas metálicas que usan, y no es raro, que algunos de los danzantes, sobre todo los de mayor edad, muestren sus manos chundas parcialmente al faltar alguna o algunas falanges de una o las dos manos.  

Cuentan que, en un evento de estos, en medio del fragor de la batalla, uno de los doce pares de Francia, vestido de colores chillantes, empuñando su espada de forma amenazante le dice a un moro en voz alta:  

¡Detente Moro valiente, no trajpasej la muralla, …..y si la güelvej a pasàj…….., la pasaj una chingada!  


 
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LA NOVENA A SANTIAGO APÓSTOL  

 

De acuerdo al testimonio del Sr. Francisco Quezada Vázquez, oriundo y vecino de Ometepec, Gro., quien ha sido Mayordomo de esa festividad religiosa de Santiago Apóstol desde hace 46 años  y  quien dicho relato lo recibió de su padre, nuestro bisabuelo Modesto Quezada Cleto, que hoy año 2021, relata que sucedió hace cerca de ochenta años.   

En la Costa Chica de los estados de Guerrero y Oaxaca, donde además de tener su nombre original, algunas comunidades, llevan agregado el de “SANTIAGO”. (Santiago Tepextla, Santiago Yolomécatl, Santiago Huajolotitlán, Santiago Pinotepa Nacional) Desde hace muchos años, se realizan festejos en honor a Santiago Apóstol, los días veinticinco de julio de cada año, ya que el templo de Ometepec, fue construido a su nombre. Los actos conmemorativos inician con la novena, rezo dedicado al Señor Santiago Apóstol en el propio templo, está encabezada por el Mayordomo, Don Francisco Quezada Vázquez, la que se instituyó en agradecimiento al Santo por Españoles y descendientes de ellos quienes fueron ganaderos pudientes, de los primeros propietarios de grandes cantidades de Ganado Vacuno y terrenos de cultivo y que se establecieron en la Costa Chica de los estados de Guerrero y Oaxaca, desarrollándose de manera especial los cultivos de frutas, maíz y algodón y sus ranchos situados a las márgenes de los ríos Santa Catarina y Quetzala, porque se tenían tierras de gran riqueza en humedad y pastura.   

El ganado que se comercializaba, provenía del Valle extenso de Jicayán, Oaxaca, que es humedecido por los ríos grande y verde en esa región.  

Ometepec, Gro., fue durante muchos años, sitio de paso y descanso para el ganado y los vaqueros. Por lo difícil de andar ese trayecto, a las reses que se lesionaban sus pezuñas o cascos, se les forraban con la piel fresca del ganado que moría en el mismo trayecto.  

Antes de la hora de la novena, algunos feligreses dormían algún tiempo recostados en una lona afuera de la sacristía para despertar al primer toque de campanas que se realizaba a las 00:30 horas, el segundo a las 00:45 horas y el tercero en punto de las 01:00 horas, momento en que iniciaba la novena. Un gran número de asistentes se trasladaban a sus ranchos situados en ”Los Bajos” o sea, en tierras cultivables, bañadas por los ríos Santa Catarina y Quetzala.  

Normalmente, la mayoría de feligreses que acudían eran de origen español y muy devotos de dicho santo, avecindados en Ometepec, que desde esos años, ha sido un sitio geográfico importante cuyas orillas eran bañadas por el Gran Arroyo de La Hontana y un gran arroyo en Talapa, además de ser, centro de abasto del comercio regional, la industria agrícola, ganadera, artesanal, e importante a nivel político social.  

Desconocemos si desde el inicio, se instituyó realizar la novena a las 01:00 horas.   

Los asistentes a la novena, además de esas incomodidades, tenían que lidiar con las lluvias frecuentes en los meses de junio, julio y agosto.  

Hay que recordar, que otro inconveniente en esos tiempos, fue la obscuridad, pues se carecía de energía eléctrica y en las noches se iluminaban con hachones de madera de ocote.  

Cierta ocasión, el sacerdote de la parroquia, Don Juan Nájera, dio la indicación de suspender la novena en el horario nocturno y realizarla en otro horario durante el día, lo que no fue agradable para algunas personas, sin embargo, obedecieron la orden.  

Al día siguiente, La Novena se realizó en horario diurno, sin embargo, esa noche, sonó la misma campana a las 00:30 horas, para el llamado de los feligreses a la novena, lo cual despertó a la mayoría de los asistentes habituales al rezo y algunos se apresuraron a acudir a la cita habitual.  

Al sonido de la campana, el sacerdote, Don Juan Nájera, despertó molesto y fue a buscar al sacristán para llamarle la atención, pero al encontrarlo dormido, lo despertó y el sacristán le mostró la llave del candado de la puerta de acceso.  

En ese momento, el sacerdote le dio la orden de acompañarlo al campanario e investigar lo sucedido. Llegando a la puerta de acceso al campanario, notaron que la misma se encontraba cerrada correctamente, con su candado colocado y cerrado.   

En ese momento, el sacerdote, el sacristán y algunos feligreses que ya habían llegado, acudieron ante el altar a solicitar perdón al santo.   

Ante el asombro por lo sucedido, la novena se ha seguido realizando durante la noche, sin embargo, los años 2020 y 2021 por cuidar la salud de la población, teniendo que cambiar de horario la novena, la cual se realizó en horario vespertino, como estrategia para reducir los contagios por Covid, se acortó el trayecto de la Procesión.  

 

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COSTEÑADAS

 

Por el Médico y Excelso Escritor, el Dr. José Rafael Castillo QuezadaJosé Rafael Castillo Quezada.

 

PROLOGO

 

Introducirnos en la cultura popular, en sus dichos y coplas, no es una empresa fácil como tampoco en lo relativo al habla, modos y expresiones propias de una región cultural.

 

Scosta1

 

La Costa Chica de Guerrero, juega un papel polivalente en la identidad de los pueblos de Guerrero. 

 

En ese jirón de tierra pegada al mar y a la montaña, convergen tres tradiciones y cuatro culturas; la amuzga, mixteca, mestiza y afrodescendiente.

 

Y es precisamente en este atanor cultural donde transita la memoria de Castillo Quezada.

 

Haber sido desde niño un observador meticuloso en la tienda de sus abuelos y padres, hasta convertirse en un medico exitoso, que dejó la costa para irse a estudiar a la Ciudad de México, en donde con paisanos y paisanas repasaban dichos y hechos, chilitos y coplas, chilenas y recuerdos de su tierra natal, lo fue dotando una vision más integral de la cultura costeña.

 

José Rafael Castillo, además de cantar y tocar la guitarra y curar enfermos del alma y del cuerpo, posee una memoria prodigiosa al igual que otra amiga originaria de la Soledad, Reyna Guzmán, que a la menor provocación, describen lugares, ropas, formas de caminar, de hablar, de reír de la gente contemporánea de la costa y en especial de Ometepec, donde estudiamos hasta la secundaria.

 

Yo no tengo esa capacidad de los memoriosos de la costa, mujeres y hombres que conservan en su mente la historia regional y que la portan como un estandarte. 

 

José Rafael es uno de ellos.

 

Gracias a las narraciones de este libro, he recordado las tertulias eternas en la casa del Tío Che, un hombre que tenía una imprenta y que aún ya viejo, agarrado del bastón bailaba las chilenas y en su casa nos reuníamos los desterrados de la costa que estudiábamos en México; Andrés Manzano Añorve, Manuel Añorve Baños, José Luis Manzano Añorve, Ángel Aguirre Rivero, Mateo Aguirre Arizmendi, Rafael Fuentes de María Añorve, Carlos Mateo Aguirre Rivero, José Rafael Castillo Quezada, Manuel Mendoza Utrilla, Jorge Palacios Vargas, Oscar Castillo Quezada, José Efraín Guillén Apreza, Hugo Torres Vázquez, entre muchos. 

 

Mención especial merecen las hijas guapas y acosteñadas del Tío Che; Zoraida, Célida, Yadiralia, Noemí y Elvia. Y de sus tres hijos; Antonio, Rolando y Fernando. 

 

Al Tío Che, además de gran anfitrión gustaba de componer versos:

Manzano dulce guineo

por tu sabor de costeño, siendo dulce, no eres feo.

 

En eso del baile, la copla y los cuentos, en la costa hasta los chimuelos mascan tuercas y no hay quién no se diga una versada, se baile una chilena o cuente historias fantásticas sobre esta región mágica y tricontinental.

 

Haber crecido en la Costa Chica, me llena de satisfacción porque ahora que estudio la literatura con otras herramientas metodológicas, me percato de la riqueza oral y de cómo a pesar de las nuevas tecnologías y de la distancias que cada vez se acortan y se alejan entre los seres humanos, la palabra oral, viva, palpitante y precisa todavía tiene un reducto en la costa.

 

Al leer las anécdotas, chilitos, historias y recuerdos de José Rafael Castillo, me hace bulla en la memoria los nombres de compañeros y compañeras de la secundaria en Ometepec, de juegos y bromas. 

 

Guiada por los textos de Castillo, vienen a mi memoria los ecos y nombres de personajes como Chuy Velázquez Peña, Javier García, el “Mudo”, el más chismoso de Ometepec, Juan Vidrito, mi tía la Tigra, los amores de Toña Cuevas y las historias de tonos y naguales, así como la propia historia de mi numerosa familia.

 

José Rafael, tiene el don de la bondad y en esta serie de textos lo demuestra. Gracias José por acercarnos al mundo de los memoriosos y por ponernos en contacto con un pasado vivo, al que todavía le debemos mucho, como por ejemplo, que los pueblos originarios de la Costa Chica de Guerrero y Oaxaca, entren al desarrollo, y de la misma manera los pueblos afrodescendientes que a cinco siglos todavía están a la espera de montarse en un desarrollo sostenido con equidad y justicia para todos.

 

Dra. Ma de los Ángeles Manzano Añorve:

 

 

DEDICATORIAS

 

Al profesor Mario Castillo Polanco, quien me dio la enseñanza en casa y nunca en salones de clase. (Además me convidó sus Costeñadas).

 

A la memoria de mi madre, Josefa Quezada Domínguez, quien está incluida en las Costeñadas.

 

A la mujer que aceptó compartir su tiempo, salud y vida a mi lado, cuando decidió darme el primer desprecio, la Dra. María Patricia Álvarez de Castillo, y quien me recordó y sugirió algunas Costeñadas.

 

A mis hijos, de quienes aprendo a diario.

 

 

AGRADECIMIENTOS

 

A la Dra. María de los Ángeles Manzano Añorve.

Y a los que colaboraron en éste proyecto, por sus acertados comentarios.

 

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INTRODUCCION
 
 
 
Introducirnos en la cultura popular, en sus dichos y coplas, no es una empresa fácil como tampoco en lo relativo al habla, modos y expresiones propias de una región cultural. 
 
La Costa Chica de Guerrero, juega un papel polivalente en la identidad de los pueblos de Guerrero.
 
En ese jirón de tierra pegada al mar y a la montaña, convergen tres tradiciones y cuatro culturas; la amuzga, mixteca, mestiza y afrodescendiente. Y es precisamente en este atanor cultural donde transita la memoria de Castillo Quezada. 
 
Haber sido desde niño un observador meticuloso en la tienda de sus abuelos y padres, hasta convertirse en un medico exitoso, que dejó la costa para irse a estudiar a la Ciudad de México, en donde con paisanos y paisanas repasaban dichos y hechos, chilitos y coplas, chilenas y recuerdos de su tierra natal, lo fue dotando una vision más integral de la cultura costeña. 
dr
 
 
El Dr. José Rafael Castillo, además de cantar y tocar la guitarra y curar enfermos del alma y del cuerpo, posee una memoria prodigiosa al igual que otra amiga originaria de la Soledad, Reyna Guzmán, que a la menor provocación, describen lugares, ropas, formas de caminar, de hablar, de reír de la gente contemporánea de la costa y en especial de Ometepec, donde estudiamos hasta la secundaria.
 
 

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