— from Learner Limbach —
Dear San Juan Islands Community,
As you may have heard, I flew to DC on Wednesday to help stop the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. I don’t need to tell you all the ways in which his confirmation would be a disaster for our country; for women’s rights and in many other ways. Today I was arrested with over 600 others during a non-violent direct action in the Senate building, detained for two hours and released.
I’ll be going back [today] for other actions, and again on Saturday. When I found out tonight that the vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation was likely to be held late Saturday afternoon I cancelled my return flight that I had for Saturday and will be taking it day by day. What I want to stress to all of you is that this is not over. The energy here is hopeful. We may have the odds stacked against us but there is still a path to getting the votes to block Kavanaugh and we must press on. Don’t listen to the naysayers and the news reports that are making it out to be more bleak than it is. No one knows how the undecided Senators will vote and the media loves to speculate.
I’m fortunate to be here with two amazing women, Fran Tatu and Angie Spencer, and we have discovered we are a really great team. We have started a joint GoFundMe to help defray costs and we are also using that as a platform for posting updates. Please read the latest update on our GoFundMe page for more info about what’s happened so far and what is coming up.
If you have any questions feel free to contact me and I’ll try to my best to answer. I’ll also be posting a lot of updates on Facebook throughout the day.
Small wonder Washington in his farewell speech concluded that political parties (defined in his two terms) sewed discord and division and were nothing short of corrosive to Democracy. Not connecting this to manifestations of social pathologies like sexual assault and our need to confront them head on as one undivided people, the debilitating effects of “political factions” prophesied in our first President’s final remarks might be considered their own brand of revelation:
“The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men (let’s insert “and women” here) to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.
Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.
It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.”
(If he were here today might he say “I told you so”)
Thank you, Learner, for being present to represent the great majority of Orcas Islanders at this massive insult to the women of our country. I hope they will turn out en masse next month to register their great dissatisfacton with the white male leadership of the Republican party.
Thank you Lerner! Now let’s all head to the go fund me page and support these important efforts!
My point about political factions being divisive and disingenuous is displayed by seeking the impeachment of a sitting Supreme Court Justice.
No matter the disappointment, impeachment is groundless; it’s a ploy to fire up a political faction. It’s insincere, manipulative, and a clear abuse of good faith conduct?
Whether the above is utopian or not, the below observations are most likely true. So if you proceed know that you are warriors fighting a war to the death; you’re not interested in peace. You’re not moral –neither based on a “construct” nor through the “divine”–for those who believe in God.
13 Essential Observations:
1. War doesn’t change minds.
2. YOU cannot be forced to change YOUR mind by imposition.
3. 2000+ years of written history demonstrates that imposition over others delays or prolongs fighting.
4: Reason? It’s lost in the throws of emotion and frustration.
5. Destroying society over abstract, constructed rights? How they factor into a “constructed” human society? A clear view of reality is lost in muddy puddles of inferior insight and education. Truly, it’s astonishing how ignorant we are and shallow our depth of observation.
6. Being subtle and polite, many learned people do not reason well outside their respective fields of truncated study.
7. Emotion is inaccurate by definition; it’s exaggeration by definition; it’s not an accurate description of reality, past or present. It’s unreliable as a basis for action; it “necessarily” leads to an erroneous conclusion.
8. Revenge is “debased” thinking.
9. Partisans distort reason.
10. Partisans DO NOT search for peace and understanding.
11. Evolution “appears” limited to the “physical” world, not affecting that which animates us–that which causes us to think, speak and behave (call the “animus” by whatever name makes you comfortable).
12. Logic and Reason are not gender specific. Geometry and Calculus arrive at solutions– irrespective of gender. Equations cannot be forced to produce desired answers– irrespective of gender.
13. Frustration cannot replace Reason to force a valid outcome.
What about the future? Where are we headed?