Endless, chest-ripping sobs of sadness, anger, relief, and joy

I had a quiet Thanksgiving Day. I left the house only for a walk around the neighborhood. No one came to visit. My turkey came from the carving station at an upscale grocery store and their dressing is quite tasty. Alas, no gravy. I has a salad from a bag and added dressing to it. I have enough for a meal tomorrow. A news articles I read said the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade would be in the morning on NBC. But the NBC station in Detroit showed the Detroit parade. I didn’t watch it. I was able to see the Macy’s Parade this afternoon. I don’t watch much TV, so was amazed at how much time was taken by commercials. Muting a stream is very easy. The route of the pandemic parade wasn’t very long. The various floats pulled up in front of the Macy’s store. The people onboard did their thing and the float pulled away. That was it. Several big balloons were there, pulled in front of the store, then gone again. This year they were guided by carts or small jeeps instead of 80 or so people and the cameras were careful not to show them (though did once). For songs from Broadway shows they went to another site for a pre-recorded scene. I rarely watch either parade because on most Thanksgiving Days I’m driving to visit family. Bill in Portland, Maine, in his Cheers and Jeers column for Daily Kos has a great and long list of things he is thankful for this year. I echo his choices. And here are a few of my own: I am alive and well and physically active. I have so far avoided the virus. I was able to do some traveling this year, coming home just before lockdown. I don’t face financial issues or housing issues. My retirement income allowed me to donate generously to a variety of causes. I’ve had plenty of time for my composing and my genealogy work. Phones and email allow me to keep up with siblings and cousins. The transition to Joe Biden as president has – so far – been without violence. My performance bell choir met for a month and my church bell choir is able to continue to meet. COVID vaccines have been announced, so this time of isolation has an end in sight, even if still several months away. Mark Sumner of Kos wrote something hopeful – that since this Thanksgiving was such a mess because of the pandemic we should have another National Day of Thanksgiving to mark the end of the pandemic, whenever that is.

Second Thanksgiving should be, like the first one, official. Joe Biden should haul out a proper, non-Sharpie pen and affix his name to an order setting aside a date for Americans to remember the hundreds of thousands who fell, recall the shared hardships of the pandemic, and celebrate the triumph of medical science and reason in restoring the nation. Naturally, none of this should happen immediately upon the release of the first vaccine. But it also shouldn’t wait for COVID-19 to be declared extinct. For a number of reasons, unlike smallpox, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is likely to be around for the foreseeable future. The date should be set at a point where the cases of COVID-19 are not just declining, but where it’s clearly not just a pause before another surge; a point where vaccines are readily available to the general public, and when testing shows that the disease has genuinely been pressed into a corner. … Whenever it happens—and it will happen—we need to be there. Second Thanksgiving. And we need to do it right—with parades, a lot of flag waving, and tears … endless, chest-ripping sobs of sadness, anger, relief, and joy. And we need to eat, dammit. Every good holiday deserves a meal. … Start planning now for how you’re going to decorate. What you’re going to fix. How you’re going to mourn. How you’re going to praise. How you’re going to sing. And don’t forget the pie.

John Constable was an English painter in the Romantic Era (the 19th Century). Someone using his name is tweeting images of paintings of that era and into the 20th Century. Even better, these are paintings I haven’t seen. This makes a nice mental health break. On to interesting things from the news. Brad Raffensperger has become famous in the last month. He is the GOP Georgia Secretary of State, so in charge of the election. He certified the state’s vote tally for Joe Biden. The nasty guy got upset. Raffensperger wrote an editorial in USAToday which included, “my family voted for him, donated to him and are now being thrown under the bus by him.” Stonekettle responded:

Sometimes you HAVE to get thrown under the goddamn bus, because that's the ONLY way you seem to be able to learn. This is the lesson of Tyrants: everyone is disposable. This is the lesson of dictators: sooner or later, EVERYBODY is the enemy. Everybody.

A tyrant is extreme in his need to be seen as better than everyone else. The first targets are the easy ones, the people the rest of the society puts at the bottom of the social hierarchy. But after those are eliminated the tyrant keeps working away at every level of the social hierarchy. Even when down to the last few the tyrant has to show himself better than them as well. So they are targeted. Until he’s alone. Jason Overstreet tweeted:

"We can disagree and still love each other. Unless your disagreement is rooted in my oppression and denial of my humanity and right to exist.” — James Baldwin

David Neiwert of Kos reported that gun-rights fanatics had such a great time during their rally in Richmond, VA last January (and for 20 Januarys before then) they agreed to do it again this January. Last week, when they tried to get a permit for their rally, the only open time slots were 6 am or 6 pm. Permits for all the other time periods had already been issued to gun-control groups. The gun-rights groups cried “Conspiracy!” When it was just a concerted effort by the gun-control crowd. That won’t stop the gun-rights groups. They’ll still come to town with their intimidation. Philip Van Cleave, one of their leaders talked to the Washington Post about the day. Wrote Neiwert:

“All of them will be decked out with flags and magnet signs. We’ll probably have buses leading the caravan,” he told The Post—adding that participants will be able to keep warm and dry in their vehicles, and they can keep their guns with them too. “And it doesn’t mean you can’t get out and walk around Richmond while you’re there,” he added.

Nate Silver of Fivethirtyeight tweeted about somebody who didn’t explain to his satisfaction the mechanisms of how the election could be stolen. MsPackyetti was quite annoyed with that cluelessness and tweeted a thread about voter suppression, which is not new, though has gotten more sophisticated. No authority on elections should downplay it. Though the nasty guy’s attempts to steal the election have been unsuccessful, doesn’t mean there weren’t attempts – and that doesn’t include his clownish three dozen cases before the courts.

You’re telling me you WATCHED Brian Kemp run his OWN election, Stacey Abrams’ race get stolen, READ the reports that 200K GA voters were wrongly purged in that race, and SEE the #ProGeorgia table of organizers fight tooth and nail and still think elections don’t get stolen?! You’re telling me you WATCHED Ron DeSantis turn over the will of Floridians and make 1.4 million formerly incarcerated folks pay restitution before they could vote, FRRC raise MILLIONS of dollars to pay a damn poll tax, and still think there are no “mechanisms” for theft? You mean to tell me you watched Allie Young have to lead entire caravans on HORSEBACK in Arizona because there are TEN MILES for some Indigenous folks between their homes and their polling places and still think there’s no suppression?! You’re actually going to fix your fingers to say there was no “mechanism” for theft when JUST THIS PAST PRIMARY, Milwaukee went down to ONE polling place in a Pandemic? You watched Greg Abbott try to pull a similar stunt in Harris County and still have the nerve to say that?? You have the unmitigated gall to call warnings about election theft an “underwear gnome” like Trump didn’t file a bunch of lawsuits in the BLACKEST CITIES AND COUNTIES IN AMERICA because he couldn’t understand for the LIFE of him how we overcame their robbery attempts? You really gonna look John Lewis’ ghost in the face and say this was never real when Mitch McConnell let the Voting Rights Restoration Act named for Mr. Lewis sit and get dusty on his desk?!? In the year of our Lord 2020 you’re going to act like Trump didn’t hire his homeboy Louis DeJoy to try to shut down the damn postal service, the sorting machines, and the infrastructure needed for a pandemic election?! You’re gonna get on Beyoncé’s internet and not act like Cambridge Analytica never existed, disinformation ain’t running rampant and Black and LatinX communities were never targeted? You’re gonna take the day the Lord has made and use it to pretend Trump hasn’t attempted to undermine the validity of our elections since the SECOND he was afraid he was going to lose with lie after lie??? ... If there is no monster underneath your bed, it’s not because it never existed: it’s because all the Black and Brown and Indigenous people you don’t bother taking seriously killed it for you. ... Any American electoral commentary, predictions or work that lack a clear analysis of racist voter suppression is not worth the paper it’s printed on or the app it’s posted on.

Southpaw responded to the same Nate Silver tweet. Southpaw wrote about the sabotaged postal service, the Pennsylvania plan to allow processing mail ballots, so they would be counted last so the nasty guy could declare victory based on the in-person ballots. The plan was explained ahead of time (by the opposition) and was put into actual practice.

There was a concerted, multifaceted, well-documented effort to subvert this election, the president was an organizing force, he and much of his party actively participated, and it has caused real damage. The attempts to write all that off are deeply unworthy.