But first (to lighten the mood):
The white supremacy threat. The very White Reverend Paul Brandeis Raushenbush asks: “What are white people doing about it?” It’s time, he says, “to treat white supremacist terrorism as the global threat it is.”
. . . Over the past few years we have seen white supremacist attacks in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Charleston, South Carolina, Quebec City, Canada, Otoya Island, Norway, Pittsburgh, PA and most recently ChristChurch, New Zealand [among others] and yet the response is still piecemeal, treating each incident as somehow an aberration rather than manifestations of an ideology with objectives and violent strategies to achieve them.
The global rise of white supremacy must be confronted . . . with urgency and resources. The fact that this is not completely clear is evidence of how deep white supremacist logic is embedded in many western countries, including America. It is up to each of us to insist that this threat be taken seriously with immediate action, and make clear that silence can only be understood as acquiescence. . . .
And from the Washington Post:
. . . [A]uthoritarianism has emerged as the greatest challenge facing the liberal democratic world . . . with strong nations such as China and Russia championing anti-liberalism as an alternative to a teetering liberal hegemony. It has returned as an ideological force . . . and just at the moment when the liberal world is suffering its greatest crisis of confidence since the 1930s. It has returned armed with new and hitherto unimaginable tools of social control and disruption that are shoring up authoritarian rule at home, spreading it abroad and reaching into the very heart of liberal societies to undermine them from within. . . .
And now:
Fonde Taylor: “Wish I had ‘invested’ in your book 30 years ago. My wife and I are already implementing some of your suggestions — we cut the cable and turned off our subscription to the local newspaper resulting in several hundred dollars saved for the year. [Oh, God: I’m helping to kill local newspapers! Maybe sign up for the digital Washington Post? Democracy Dies In Darkness.] Meanwhile, I wanted to add a suggestion: Some years ago I was helping my 80 year old father go through some financial things. A friend had told me about ‘unclaimed property/money’ that the state treasury has. I did some research and Dad’s name popped up on about half a dozen items. We filed the claims and he received a check for about $3000. He was a retired doctor and it was from some patient health insurance payments that were returned to the insurers when he retired and closed his practice. Apparently he didn’t leave a forwarding address. The process for looking up ‘unclaimed property/money’ is fairly simple. All you do is go to the web site for your State Treasurer and search for your name in the search field under ‘Unclaimed Property/Money.’ I have since searched for family and friends and found claims for four of them. I forwarded a link to each — one of them is always complaining about not having any money. I told them how the process works and how simple it was. And now for the punchline — to my knowledge, not one of them followed up on it and their ‘unclaimed money’ still sits in the state treasurer’s bank account.”
–> I just tried this — and have $279 heading back my way from some deposit ADT had not tried very hard to return to me. Thanks, Fonde!
