“…I've looked at life from both sides now
From win and lose and still somehow
It's life's illusions I recall
I really don't know life at all…”
~Joni Mitchell
All the way through high school, our school dress code required nice trousers for boys and skirts/dresses for girls. It was just the way it was. But my mother took the dress code to a new level. She was very big on propriety … I mean really big about how one dressed and behaved - it was probably her Southern upbringing. For example, my brother and I could only wear our Montana blue jeans when we were camping or playing outside. I always had to wear a skirt when we went downtown to Chicago or even to the local movie theater.
One time a friend asked me to go the movies. My mother and I got into an argument about what I was wearing. She was determined and insisted that I couldn’t go to the movies unless I put on a skirt. I was stubborn and refused. I knew my friend would be dressed more casually and I saw no reason to wear a skirt.
When my friend and her mother arrived to pick me up to go to the movies, I walked out to their car and told them I couldn’t go with them and why.
My friend’s mother, who was also one of my mother’s best friends and like an aunt to me, said something like, “Oh, for heaven’s sake, get in the car and let’s go.”
I knew it was a mistake to get in the car, but I figured a trusted adult gave me permission. Although, I have to admit, I didn’t enjoy the movie much knowing what was in store for me, when I got home.
Boy, was Mother angry.
Out came my perennial justification, “But (name)’s mother said it was OK.”
And Mother replied with her classic line: “I don’t care what (name)’s mother said. I’m your mother and I said, ‘NO’.”
Mother saw most things in absolute terms. Dressing properly was dressing properly. Honesty was honesty. Lying was lying. Being polite was being polite. She didn’t make a big deal out of a lot of things, but anything she deemed relevant to our basic character was non-negotiable.
There was no ambiguity, no moral relevancy and no situational ethics with my mother. And there was no “both sides-ism” either.
A politician who lied was wrong. Period. It didn’t matter what party they belonged to.
Wrong was wrong. Full stop.
Mother was just as appalled by Richard Nixon’s lies as she was by Bill Clinton’s lies: no justification for their relative situations. Lying was lying.
Both of our political parties engage in both sides-isms. The big difference, of course, is the GOP tends to do it more frequently with lies or questionable relativity of the situation. For example, the GOP promotes the idea that Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s policy differences are somehow equivalent to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s conspiracy theories. And who can forget how Trump defended white nationalist protesters with, “Some very fine people on Both Sides.”
One of the many things I’ve noticed with our Felon-in-Chief and his current adminstration is how both sides-ism justifies everything horrific they are doing. There is no accountability, no humility, no recognition of mistakes made, no acceptance of election results, none.
Case in point…. remember when California Senator Padilla was manhandled and handcuffed at ICE Queen, Kristi Noem’s press conference? (Sen. Alex Padilla is forcibly removed from DHS Secretary Kristi Noem's news conference in Los Angeles.)
In my imagination, I can just hear my mother’s conversation with her “daughter” Kristi:
Mother: “Kristi. That was a disgrace. You need to apologize to the Senator and let him know how horrified you are with what happened.”
Kristi: “But Mom, it’s not my fault. The guards overeacted. He shouldn’t have been at my press conference without being invited.”
Mother: “You’re wrong. What happened was dispicable and you owe the man a personal and public apology. You need to say, that you didn’t agree with what happened. Every human being needs to be treated with courtesy and respect.”
Kristi: “But Trump said it was OK.”
Mother: “I don’t care what Trump said. He’s wrong. You owe the Senator an apology.”
You get the gist.
Did Noem apologize? Of course not — in fact, she went on FauxNews and lied about the incident, saying that Padilla didn’t identify himself. Does she think we’re deaf, dumb and didn’t see the newsclip? Courtesy? Respect? Civility? All the basic norms of human decency? Hardly.
No nothing. She simply justified what happened with both sides-isms… that Padilla coming to her politically staged press conference was just “a Democrat engaging in political theater.”
Nothing like the pot calling the kettle black.
Everytime I hear a “both sides” justification for something, all I can think of is my mother.
Wrong is wrong. Full stop.
Thought for the day in honor of his birthday…
“Behind every fascism there is a failed revolution.”
~Walter Benjamin
Must Read Articles:
How MAGA Uses “Both Sides” to Protect Authoritarianism
False equivalence is the seductive lie that every sin has a mirror. That for every authoritarian overreach on the right, there must be a radical excess on the left. It promises symmetry where none exists. And it’s not just intellectually lazy, it is functionally dangerous. Because in the pursuit of balance, it allows tyranny to dress itself in the garb of democracy and go unchallenged…
And so, when confronted with the grotesque spectacle of MAGA’s behavior, censoring books, criminalizing healthcare, rewriting history, many Americans retreat into the safety blanket of false equivalence. If both sides are bad, then no side needs to be chosen. No side needs to be condemned. No side needs to be fought.
Why Do So Many People Think Trump Is Good?
There’s a question that’s been bugging me for nearly a decade. How is it that half of America looks at Donald Trump and doesn’t find him morally repellent? He lies, cheats, steals, betrays, and behaves cruelly and corruptly, and more than 70 million Americans find him, at the very least, morally acceptable. Some even see him as heroic, admirable, and wonderful. What has brought us to this state of moral numbness?
…Today, we live in a world in which many, or even most, people no longer have a sense that there is a permanent moral order to the universe. More than that, many have come to regard the traditions of moral practice that were so central to the ancient worldview as too inhibiting—they get in the way of maximum individual freedom.
Quote of the day:
“Trump’s poll numbers have long been headed downward. But increasing numbers of people are beginning to see what inexperience, incompetence, and intolerance can do to our beloved country. One would imagine that the Jeffrey Epstein saga is far down your list of things to care about. But the rising revolt on the far-right is something to watch. Trump is finally being challenged from all sides.”
~ Dan Rather
What I’m reading today…
Lawmakers visit ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ after being blocked
Democratic lawmakers condemned Florida’s new Everglades immigration detention center after visiting Saturday, describing it as crowded, unsanitary and bug-infested. Republicans on the same tour said they saw nothing of the sort at the remote facility that officials have dubbed “ Alligator Alcatraz.”
But detainees and their relatives and advocates have told The Associated Press that conditions are awful, with worm-infested food, toilets overflowing onto floors, mosquitoes buzzing around the fenced bunks, and air conditioners that sometimes shut off in the oppressive South Florida summer heat. One man told his wife that detainees go days without getting showers.
More than 70 structures have been lost, including National Park Service administrative buildings and visitor facilities…structures near the Grand Canyon Lodge — the only lodging inside the park at the North Rim — burned to the ground.
"Arizona lost more than a historic lodge, it lost a piece of our state history," said Arizona Sen. Ruben Gallego.
A wildfire that destroyed historic Grand Canyon Lodge spread after being allowed to burn for days
A wildfire that tore through a historic Grand Canyon lodge and raged out of control Monday had been allowed to burn for days before erupting over the weekend, raising scrutiny over the National Park Service’s decision not to aggressively attack the fire right away.
Arizona patient dies in emergency room from plague
A person in northern Arizona has died from a case of pneumonic plague. Rapid diagnostic testing led to a presumptive diagnosis of Yersinia pestis…pneumonic plague, described as “a severe lung infection caused by the Yersinia pestis bacterium.”
The Pentagon has pulled a host of top military officials from attending a major security conference in Colorado that was set to start Tuesday, arguing that the event is anti-American and goes against the values of the Trump administration…The conference in question is the Aspen Security Forum -- an event put on annually by the Aspen Institute, a nonprofit organization -- and it is one of the most high-profile events for top officials in the national security space. Its attendees have historically included top military leaders, lawmakers and officials from both political parties.
From Science to Diversity, Trump Hits the Reverse Button on Decades of Change
Trump suggests that he is on a mission to halt what he considers the degradation of America by “radical left lunatics” and return the country to better times. “We’ve seen some of our political system attempting to overthrow the timeless American principles and other pillars of our liberty, and replace them with some of the most noxious ideas in human history, ideas that have been proven false…
Trump has never clearly defined exactly when America was great, and when it stopped being great.
What period of American history is he trying to recapture? The 1950s of his childhood, with its “Leave It To Beaver” era of peace and prosperity, even if women and people of color were still second-class citizens and Joseph McCarthy blacklisted supposed communists? The 1980s, when Mr. Trump was in his Manhattan real estate heyday, featured regularly in the tabloids as he squired models around? The early 2000s, when he was a fixture on reality television, barking, “You’re fired!” every week?
Trump’s probe into Biden unravels in real-time hypocrisy
Comer’s own investigation letters and subpoena notices were signed with — wait for it… — a digital signature. Metadata on every one of his 16 investigative letters shows his signature was added as a digital image.
In short: they’re investigating the former president for something they’re doing themselves…in realtime.
The MAGA factions fighting about Epstein
The controversy over the Epstein files demonstrates that dissonant strands persist despite Trump’s domination of the party. Meanwhile, the controversy has pushed the MAGA movement to the brink of its most serious political schism since Trump returned to office in January.
The landscape of the controversy is still shifting, as different members of Trump’s coalition either fall in line or fall out. But as it stands now, here is a taxonomy of the various factions duking it out over the Epstein files.
What I am listening to…
What I read every day…
