Plan B Forum

we will still be stronger together than ripped apart:

A prayer and poem for post election:

A Desire For Civic Alchemy

After the election,
May we seek to practice
Civic Alchemy

May we turn:

Battle Ground
Into
Common Ground

Swing States
Into
United States

And turn:

The Hubris of Competing Certainties
Into
The Humility of Cooperating Countrywomen and Men.

After this election,
Let us be
Civic Alchemists

Let us turn:

An inability to hear one another
Into
A determination to listen
Without prejudice
Without fear
With a Courageous Empathy

After this election,
Let us engage in
Civic Alchemy

Let us work to turn:

The Lie of Separation
Into
The Truth of
Interconnection
Interdependence
Of One Nation, Indivisible.

After this election

Let Us Together Turn:

Entrenched Animosity
Into
Elevated Love

Clenched Fists
Into
Outstretched Hands

Red and Blue
Into
Us: beautiful, incredible, hopeful, helpful, united, Civic Alchemists.

Credit: Cory Booker

Thanks for posting this, my thoughts exactly!

Beautiful sentiment and very inspiring.

I have no doubt that Democrats and other Hillary supporters will be wide open to bridging the gap, and that from the Trump supporters and many Congressional Republicans there will be just more of the same as from the past 8 years.

I have no doubt that Democrats and other Hillary supporters will be wide open to bridging the gap

That would be an enormous improvement over the approach Obama took at the outset of his Administration when GOP Congressional leaders told him they were being frozen out from the process of writing the Stimulus Bill and he responded by telling them "elections have consequences"...

BoSoxGal wrote:from the Trump supporters and many Congressional Republicans there will be just more of the same as from the past 8 years.

• Hope is a talent like any other. ~ Storm Jameson

And while searching for the source of that half-remembered quote, I came across this one:

• Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent. ~ Jean Kerr

Hope is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -

I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.

~ E.D.

Herr Drumpf and his minion are quite the storm; I truly am in terror for my country's future. I know it's my MS that makes my anxiety crippling, and I'm trying to just breathe - but I am terrified beyond any fear I have ever felt in my life.

So I'll get back to you on Wednesday.

I have a feeling that the Trumpanzees will not go gentle into that good night.

After Tuesday I feel the United States political system will be forever identified as B.T. and A.T. Our democratic republic will soon be morphing into an overt oligarchy.

May God have mercy on us.

BoSoxGal wrote:Beautiful sentiment and very inspiring.

I have no doubt that Democrats and other Hillary supporters will be wide open to bridging the gap, and that from the Trump supporters and many Congressional Republicans there will be just more of the same as from the past 8 years.

I think BoSoxGal hits the nail squarely on the head with her second sentence.

-"BB"-

Bicycle Bill wrote:

BoSoxGal wrote:Beautiful sentiment and very inspiring.

I have no doubt that Democrats and other Hillary supporters will be wide open to bridging the gap, and that from the Trump supporters and many Congressional Republicans there will be just more of the same as from the past 8 years.

I think BoSoxGal hits the nail squarely on the head with her second sentence.

-"BB"-

Irony, no? These comments show immediately why healing is going to be so incredibly difficult.

Stonekettle Station

http://www.stonekettle.com/2016/11/against-fall-of-night.html

• Monday, November 7, 2016
  
  Against the Fall of Night
  
  We’re one day out from the election.
  
  One day from finding out what our future will look like.
  
  Supposedly this is the most important election of our time – though I suspect that might be overly optimistic, but it’ll take the rest of our time, however long we have, to be certain.
  
  You’re expecting some big, long winded, in depth, final push from me, aren’t you?
  
  
  I don’t have one.
  
  
  If you don’t know who the candidates are by now, if you’re unaware of current events or the challenges before us, then I can’t help you. It’s too damned late.
  
  Stay home.
  
  Don’t vote.
  
  That way you can lay blame with a clear conscience and complain bitterly no matter how it shakes out, secure in your moral high ground and safe in your ambivalent disdain.
  
  But…
  
  If you’ve been paying attention these last few month, these last eight years, these last four decades, then you know what’s at stake here. You know what you have to do and you know why. You don’t need me to tell you.
  
  So do it.
  
  Get to the polls, Citizen. Do your duty to yourself, to your nation, to the future.
  
  And when you’ve done your duty as citizens of the Republic, do your duty as Americans.
  
  Help those who need it, don’t allow them to be disenfranchised. Stand steadfast before the hateful mob and guarantee the rights of your fellows – no matter what political party they belong to or what candidate they’re voting for.
  
  For without you, liberty dies.
  
  
  Good luck, America
  
  Posted by Jim Wright at 8:44 AM

It is a nice sentiment and it worth reminding ourselves we have more in common than not.

So here we have an interesting point of view. Jim Wright of Stonekettle blog, would appreciate it if some people did not vote at all. Not because they would vote for individuals Jim hopes are not elected, but for other reasons, mostly because they have not been paying attention.

The comic strip 'Mike du Jour' today expresses a similar idea. http://www.gocomics.com/mike-du-jour

John W. Campbell, many years ago while editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, proposed that the future era of extensive computer use would make it possible to include a series of factual questions on the voting machine. The voter would answer the questions, and their vote would be weighted according to how many correct answers the voter achieved.

Is it really a good idea that every voter and every vote has the same weight? Should some people be so ignorant or so badly informed or so strangely motivated that those individuals be discouraged or prevented from voting, as Jim Wright expressed? Few of us pick our car repairman or Cancer treatment physician this way. Why do we think it is a good idea to pick the leader of the free world this way?

snailgate

happy voting.

no poetry or bullshit.

enjoy your right and your privilege

do your duty.

vote.

I wish that every eligible citizen would participate.

wes

Snailgate - Ummm...no.

I'm pretty sure that, during the course of his Navy career, CWO Wright learned to speak not only fluent Profanity but also fluent Sarcasm. Now let me just plug that part of his post into my Google Translate Special Edition Sarcasm-to-English Translator and...

VOILA! "If you don't vote, for the next 4 years you'd better just shut up because you will have no moral authority with which to complain." (BTW, the Sarcasm-to-Profanity Translator says "Hey, asshole! If you don't get yourself up off your goddam high horse and vote you'd better shut the fuck up after the election!")



P.S. I used to read John W. Campbell's editorials in Astounding/Analog back in the day, too (as Jim Wright probably also did)...but regardless of whether he or I agree with JWC on this particular issue, I'm pretty sure that's not what Jim's getting at here...

I've never not voted, nor understood those who didn't. It didn't matter where I lived, whether it was temporary like college and law school, or more permanent, one of the first things I've always done a new place is register to vote. And get my library card…

Guinevere wrote:I've never not voted, nor understood those who didn't.

I registered to vote in April of '70 and haven't missed an election whether it be primary, general, or special. I've even arranged my vacation time around any given election day. I've always held that voting is not only a right but also a duty, and privilege.

Use it... or lose it.

we voted.

If you don’t know who the candidates are by now, if you’re unaware of current events or the challenges before us, then I can’t help you. It’s too damned late.

Stay home.

Don’t vote.

Well, will wonders never cease...

Jim Wrong has come up with something I agree with...

(Perhaps I should reassess my reasoning...)

I've been saying for years that if you haven't taken the time to learn anything about the candidates or issues that you are going to be called upon to vote on, then please, please do NOT vote.

The quality of our democracy is not enhanced by people mindlessly and ignorantly marking ballots for people or on issues about which they know nothing.

And I practice what I preach. Hardly an election cycle goes by where I see don't races for offices (school board is a really good example) or local or state propositions where I don't feel I know enough about the persons/issues involved to be able to cast an informed vote. In those cases I always skip them, and do not vote.

I call upon all Americans to do the same.

And if you haven't bothered to learn anything about any of the people or issues that will be on your ballot, then just stay home.

Kick back and crack a cold one. Fire up a fatty. Do anything you want to, just stay the hell away from the polls.

Your republic thanks you.

Lord Jim, my son the retired Navy Officer in Oklahoma sort of agrees with you. He is not voting this time. He says none of the candidates have his support. He did check out the Green and the Libertarian tickets and found them to be wackos that he says are no more qualified than the names at the head of the other parties. And he has no interest in the down-ticket offices. He says they will not do anything that will have a impact on his daily life, so good luck to them and my son is staying way from any ballot today.

snailgate

I can tell you whatever happens today we will not hear a concession speech from Trump tonight.