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Kyle Michel Sullivan's avatar

Horrific diagnosis, but too goddamned true. Right now I wish I believed in hell so I'd know every one of the MAGAt scum would be going to it.

What do you think would happen if we set up a taxpayer strike? Refusal to federal pay income tax

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Gretta Wing Miller's avatar

Been considering that myself of late…

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Kyle Michel Sullivan's avatar

We'd need to do it en masse, in numbers the IRS can't ignore or do anything about. And make certain it cannot be brushed under the rug. Not sure what that would take...

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Lisa Huegel's avatar

Imo therein lies the problem. Too many people are still living in comfy bubbles. This strategy would need ppl en masse. We're not there yet. Time is running if not already run out.💔

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Mike A's avatar

Oh believe me, I've thought about it...

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Renee Schnell-Smith's avatar

Great idea

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Bill Adelson's avatar

Financial boycotts, like international sanctions, hurt lower and middle class workers. The oligarchs drive away in their fast cars. What we want is a mass worker's strike. IMO, we don't yet have the numbers for that, but that's the effective strategy.

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Kyle Michel Sullivan's avatar

Good alternative, but how do we set it up? Pull together the numbers needed?

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Bill Adelson's avatar

Join your local Indivisible Group. Bring all your friends to join with you. When we get to 11 million on the streets, that's when we are ready. We had 5 million on June 14th (NO KINGS day). NO KINGS day 2.0 is October 18th. Be there !!!

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Susan Miiller's avatar

We need to strike where no one goes to work and no one buys anything.

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Bill Adelson's avatar

Not going work........a general strike............hurts the oligarchs. Not buying anything hurts the checkout clerk.

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Robert Davis's avatar

If nothing more, Democratic governors need to withhold federal taxes, at least enough to cover expenses incurred by federal cuts in funding to approved state expenditures.

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Patrick Daniels aka Cromulent1's avatar

Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” — Theodore Roosevelt

Exceptionally well written Rook!

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Claudia Siefer's avatar

The quote is more likely paraphrased from Dr. King's 1965 Selma Alabama sermon: "A man dies when he refuses to stand up for that which is right. A man dies when he refuses to stand up for justice. A man dies when he refuses to take a stand for that which is true."

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Clover's avatar

The imagery in this piece is beyond perfect, the message so undeniably exact it needs to be on billboards in every subway, every school and university, every grocery store and superstore in every state and every city and every town.

It is beyond time that we name and shame every last politician, regardless of political affiliation, every ICE member, police officer, influencer, priest, pastor, Fox News executives and talking heads, and every CEO of every company or industry who added, outright or covertly, to this nightmare.

Name them, shame them, and prosecute them to the full extent of the law and beyond. They are home grown terrorists and murderers and its time they are removed from decent society.

Hillary was far too generous when she called them "despicables". They are moral putrid rot personified.

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Claudia Siefer's avatar

I was raised in a rather chaotic household with a mother who, once her patience wore thin, would gather her brood and say: "I want this mess cleaned up. Put everything back where you found it"

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BrunaCarchedi's avatar

Damn! You are some writer. Your prose is artwork that feeds the imagination while at the same time tells the truth! Thank you!

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Martha Ture's avatar

Carthago delenda est.

We were ripe for plucking.

We had a set of presumptions that have proven false.

To restore ourselves after the ruins we must recover citizening as a verb.

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Robert  Taylor's avatar

Is there a doctor in the house?

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David Osinga's avatar

A tragic postmortem autopsy, and you hit the last nail in the coffin on the head...

A frank postmortem autopsy of political graft and corruption, moral degradation, pathetic people whose repercussions are pouring like a river crashing down a mountain destroying town's of average people along the way

I'd prefer a tell-all obituary to shit spun into shinola any day!

I'm no Nihlist, but its absolutely imperative to waky-waky the huddled masses, out of their complacency, an galvanize a countervailing impetus for change...

Be ungovernable, make integrity American again!

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Bill Adelson's avatar

Diagnosis is good, Rook. A clear prognosis is better.

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Susan Kacvinsky's avatar

Russel Voight predicted our country is in the midst of a “second American Revolution” that will be bloodless “if the left allows it to be.” Let’s not forget Donny isn’t really the problem and it won’t end if he dies in office. Oh and the Federalist Society who orchestrated the Supreme Court we have now, and the tech bros and other oligarchs. They knew all along that the were going to use the military.

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Richard Brody's avatar

No amount of masking, face covering, holding your nose or just plain ignoring what’s going on will be productive. What will be immensely helpful will be to forward this to all your friends, posting it on Facebook or your favorite social media website, screaming from the highest hill that we are mad as hell and can’t take it any more. Screaming “Fuck you!” will only go so far, even double flipping him/them off. Share this, people, please!

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Yvonne McCarthy's avatar

I really, really want to get a Hazmat suit and pop the balloon.

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Andrea E.'s avatar

This is so brilliantly written, yet so savage!! Whoever the actual writer is.... I believe they have a place, deep in the hearts of who we truly were, and who we are still fighting to be. God bless America Pap! Fly that flag upside down for us! We aren't going into white flag status.... we are digging in. 💙🤍❤️

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Michele Farinet's avatar

I'm just going to say-- god damn, I wish I had written this. This is everything.

Nothing more, nothing less than every fucking thing

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pete gee's avatar

I wish you Americans well, but maybe sardonic laughter is all you have left now that all else seems corrupted and thieved.

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Moki Kokoris's avatar

Rook, your writing takes my breath away. No exaggeration! Now, would you mind if I nominated you for the Noble Piece Prize (see what I did there?) 😉

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Ani Sweitzer's avatar

Quite an image!

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