Tell Twitter: Stop Stifling Our Voice!

T

witter is acting as cop for the two-party duopoly by censoring @ArticlesofUnity . I'm telling @jack what I think of this and I hope you will too!

Fake News, or Fake Fact-Checking?

At a meeting last Wednesday, a friend shared an image of a newspaper or magazine clipping with a picture of Donald Trump with his mother, and under the picture a caption quoting his mother saying, "Yes, he's an idiot with zero common sense, and no social skills, but he IS my son. I just hope he never gets into politics. He'd be a disaster."

Preparatory to sharing this, I figured people would like to know which publication it's from. So I did a Web search for "Mary Anne Trump" + "idiot." And what I got was a bunch of pages calling it fake news because they say the quote couldn't be found in any media searches.

Curiously, though, they all show a different meme from the one above -- something much more easily photoshopped, and therefore much more easily dismissed as fake. I was going to post that image below but, strangely, every time I try to do so I get an error message saying the file "must be an image or video," the first of which is exactly what it is. But you can see it here: https://www.snopes.com/tachyon/2019/12/mary-anne-trump.png

Concerning searches for the quote, my friend remarks, "Well upon further review it is not likely a newspaper clipping. More likely a magazine. If they searched newspapers and didn’t find it they would get a false negative. To date it I would suggest it’s mid-80’s, a long time before real online archives that include both pictures AND captions. It’s not formatted like a pull quote so it probably wasn’t in the story."

If anyone reading this knows where the first image is from, please respond in the comments.

I'm voting now to confront a dual existential crisis. Join me?

This is an unprecedented situation: two exceptionally incompetent capitalist politicians competing to be head of what's increasingly looking like a failed state as a pandemic rages out of control and many think we're on the verge of civil war.


Unlike the previous one, there's no revolutionary class with the consciousness to give it a progressive resolution. The working class still doesn't even have our own party. Yet if socialists just continue operating as usual, following our customary symbolic electoral practices while waiting for that to happen, things could get much worse.


In this context, I'm supporting a different approach -- one that buys time for an ultimate socialist solution by avoiding the more immediate existential threat from a totally dysfunctional political system. I'm supporting Unity2020.


It's not a left campaign. It's more like an anti-corruption, pro-competence campaign. Its merit is that it may not only halt the course toward self-destruction we're currently on -- it may open up new possibilities by breaking the grip of the two capitalist parties and, by doing so, set an example that could finally make a workers' party look like a realistic idea to millions of people.


It avoids the spoiler problem by defining itself in terms of universal values instead of ideological or demographic checklists. So it draws support away from both capitalist parties equally rather than helping one of them over the other. This is already demonstrated by the composition of volunteers, who include as many conservatives as liberals or progressives. That's why I think it has a serious chance, this year. It may be a long shot, but it's more realistic than expecting that Howie Hawkins, or any left candidate, will be taking the Oath of Office next January.


Right now we're in the process of selecting a pair of candidates to draft from a shortlist of six, based on nominations (now closed) by the volunteers ourselves. I hope you'll go to https://articlesofunity.org and take a look at it. If you decide it's an idea that makes sense at this moment, you can become part of the process of selecting the ticket.

#Unity2020: Why I’m Leaving the Parties and Joining the People

Ryan McEnroe, a writer in Boston, gives this account of how he got involved in the Unity2020 Presidential Plan to Save the Republic, which I also support:

I don’t know exactly when it happened, but sometime in the last eight years I began to feel an intense fear whenever politics came up. I learned to studiously say nothing. I knew around certain family members not to mention that I agreed with President Obama on many issues. And if I said anything positive about a Republican, I knew I could be risking friendships or even my job.

As DNC backroom deals paved the way for Biden’s nomination just before Super Tuesday, it became clear that, as in 2016, I would again have to vote for the “lesser evil.” So I decided I’m not voting for President this year. I cannot vote for Trump but I cannot bring myself to vote for Biden. My vote won’t make a difference anyway. The corrupt parties always win. They can have the government, I will focus my efforts elsewhere. I give up.

Then about a month ago, I came across the website www.articlesofunity.org. It intrigued me. The idea is to try to bring the country together by joining one left-leaning and one right-leaning candidate on a ticket. Here’s the plan they came up with:

Nominate a ticket with two candidates that meet the following criteria: they must be courageous, they must be capable, and they must be patriotic. 
A coin flip will determine which candidate runs as President and which candidate runs as Vice President.
They must agree to work as a team, making all decisions together, wherever possible.
After four years, they switch roles, continuing until one has served twice and is ineligible to serve as President.

Just your simple every day plan to overthrow the corrupt two-party system and save the republic. They even have a failsafe to ensure that if it does not look like they can win, they will pull the plug and everyone can return to their corners. I had little confidence it could work, but I thought the website had at least earned my email address. 

Over the last month, I slowly became more involved. It started by listening to podcast episodes and Campfire discussions about Unity2020. Then I joined an online discussion forum consisting of thousands of Unity2020 volunteers. I have met hundreds of Unity2020 supporters in the last few weeks. Incredibly, these patriots come from all over the political spectrum, but we get together on Zoom calls and in chat rooms, put aside our differences, and work on a common goal: ensuring our next President is a patriotic functional adult that is not tainted by corruption. I learned that as of last week more than 30,000 people have provided their email address on www.articlesofunity.org. There are more of us than I thought, and that number is growing rapidly every day.

I’m still skeptical the plan can work. There are a million reasons not to try. I think the parties and the media want me focusing on those reasons. I have heard others describe a sort of “learned helplessness” we all feel, and I believe the media and the parties want us to feel it.

But there are also reasons to give it a try. I will finally be able to vote for a competent candidate that I can trust isn’t controlled by donors or the party. I will be able to hold my head up high when I exercise my sacred civic duty on November 3. Unity2020 has offered me a lifeboat, a way to avoid choosing between Joe Biden and Donald Trump.

For the first time in eight years, I have been able to bring up politics with Republican family members, as well as Democratic friends and coworkers, without fear that I will be labeled an extremist or a monster. In fact, many of them have also been intrigued and signed up on www.articlesofunity.org. 

If you’re interested, check us out at www.articlesofunity.org. If you believe the future of the republic is at stake, which I do, let’s try to do better than Joe Biden or Donald Trump.

Human Life Before Profit! No In-Person Schooling!

From the World Socialist Web Site. It should be noted that not only are both ruling-class parties ignoring the science of how many deaths will result from premature reopening of schools and non-essential workplaces, they are also ignoring the growing evidence of major long-term health effects on those who "recover."

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/08/05/pers-a05.html 

Honesty and Courage

“Honesty and courage alone can save our wounded, disunited country now. We need the honesty and courage to speak the truth including painful truths that unsettle not only our foes but also our friends and, most especially, ourselves.” – Robert P. George and @CornelWest @ArticlesOfUnity #Unity2020 www.articlesofunity.org

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ed3LF_jX0AIUrhm.jpg https://www.bostonglobe.com/2020/07/15/opinion/unite-country-we-need-honesty-courage/

Student Faces Possible Suspension, Fine for Background of President Trump

Let's move to reverse the political polarization that leads to demonizing each other as in incidents like this by drafting a unity Presidential ticket so everyone can feel their perspective is being heard.

www.articlesofunity.org

#Unity2020

https://www.thefire.org/student-faces-possible-suspension-fine-for-zoom-background-of-president-trump/ via @TheFIREorg

Unity in Viewpoint Diversity

 

"A house divided against itself cannot stand." -- Abraham Lincoln, 16th president of the United States

"It starts with listening." -- Cassie Jaye, documentary filmmaker https://articlesofunity.org #Unity2020

When Self-Defeating Is a Good Thing

 "His attempt to commit suicide by leaping from the bridge was defeated by the fact that he was an excellent swimmer." -- Steve Silberman, NeuroTribes: The Legacy of Autism and the Future of Neurodiversity, chapter 8, p. 32 of 37