Thank you again for your unique ability to bring honest clarity and truth to difficult and threatening challenges. What is clear is that most of us already actually know the things you take the time to unravel but refuse to act upon it.
Another excellent piece. Because of my background, I might be more inclined to see this as the inevitable late stages of capitalism. Of course that alone doesn't explain everything. You so eloquently sprinkle in the uniquely American ingredients that have lead to this stage, but the end result is largely driven, IMO, by the relentless profiteering and the legitimation required to facilitate it. It eventually destabilizes society to the point where the majority find it increasingly hard to stay tethered to some communal sense of truth and subsequently and, to a large extent, unconsciously also lose a sense of their collective power. It is in that instant that authoritarians begin to arise. And we now see that has begun to appear in the wealthiest and allegedly most 'democratic' of nations. Tyranny isn't just for poor countries anymore.
The work you and Andrea did was immense. And though I'm sure you'll both still be in fight, wish you were still side by side through this next very turbulent time.
I remember when you gave this talk, and somehow I found a video of it online. Your words are as powerful and insightful today as they were then. Thank you for your persistence and courage, your bold and inspiring truthtelling. I have no doubt that it comes with a cost. I hope you have many ways to mitigate that cost and take good care of yourself.
Thanks for this. It was a good read that I needed today, as I have punched a door frame in anger at all the corruption and convenient ignoring of atrocities (I'm also guilty of this sometimes to preserve mental health), that goes on in the world today - especially from the corruption cancer node of the world called russia.
It's hard for me to accurately describe how pathetic I think the powerful narcissists of the world are, that mess over so many millions of people by abusing that power and how it seems to be so hard to hold them accountable, even with their extremely obvious shinanigans that they overwhelm you with.
Thank you for doing a substack - and for sharing this piece. I'm here for all of it. I do believe we are here to get at the rot and sow seeds for a just and honest future that we may not see. The way you write simultaneously soothes me and pierces my open broken heart at the same time. There is indeed "perverse freedom in being abandoned." Personally, I've experienced that many times over. Yet, I agree that it is our moral and ethical obligation to at least try to make our world better. At my core, I've always known that to be true. Grateful for all you do. Keep writing please.
Again, how Sarah's command of history and the lens of her education and experience can draw connections that many would miss, and reveal the emotional and sociological forces at play at each time. I am always left thinking about further reading, whether here, or over on Gaslitnation. I simply can't keep up, and my ability to steep myself in so much darkness is limited. I have to keep looking to 'self-care' to be able to come back in order to absorb more, or to have tough conversations with friends and acquiantances about what I find.
Last week my self-care was to spend a cold, damp Sunday morning crawling through undergrowth with binoculars and camera on a local riverbank, seeking a family of river otters, who friends of mine had spotted. No luck this time, but the peace I gained warmed me,
Thanks Sarah for republishing your work as your warnings & history lessons have always been spot on!
I hope that more people will share & financially support your work here and your following will grow over time to reach the likes of Heather Cox Richardson! Cheers!
P.S. Please also share your past audio & video commentary as part of your posts. Thom Hartmann, Michael Moore, Steve Schmidt, Judd Legum & Dean Obeidallah do a great job of mixing up their content media.
Definitely start your Podcast & YouTube channel to complement posts here. I’m delighted to consume GaslitNation on YouTube even when not seeing Andrea on screen since YouTube is my #1 place as we wind down Twitter.
Hope this helps you strategize your Substack content as it’s from the view of a long time fan who has bought all your books and consider you a trusted truth teller & historian.
I read this yesterday afternoon, upon return from a morning of sitting in on probation violation hearings, which are always a sad parade of members of our suffering, invisible underclass. It was an especially intense session, including several defendants who have been unable to comply with probation requirements due to homelessness, and the hearing officer spent a lot of time giving pep talks and words of encouragement. As I exited the room I commented on how intense it had been to the hearing officer, a man of about 60. He said: it's the day of homelessness. My way there and back is a bike trail lined with tent encampments that popped up about 18 months ago, and are highly visible along all of our extensive river trail network. Two years ago, there was not a single tent along the trails. So, your connection of America's ongoing, simmering, unacknowledged authoritarianism hit hard and I'm still processing it. Thanks for ending your essay on a note of hope, because boy it sure looks dark when you dare to take a look around the edges.
This article, very lengthy, is one of the most significant pieces I have ever read. Start reading when you have the time to read it all. It compares what the world is going through now with other times in history. It is wonderful.
Sarah, I subscribe to John Pavlovitz and he had this to say about grief: Grief is a solitary road. Even if we are fortunate enough to have people alongside us during the journey, (as I have been), no one can really travel all the way with us. Our pain and our path are as individual as the relationship we share with the person we've lost. He has many columns on the subject if you wish to google him, John Pavlovitz on Grief. Also, as you travel around, may want to go down into Arkansas, to the Subiaco Abbey in Subiaco, AR. They welcome everyone. Chancey DeVega at Salon had an interesting interview with Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, the President of the Center for Jewish History in New York City and Professor of History at Fairfield University. Rosenfeld is the author of numerous books, including the new co-edited volume (with Janet Ward), Fascism in America: Past and Present, The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from World War II to the Present, and Hi Hitler! How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture. https://www.salon.com/2023/10/24/plutocrats-and-populists-the-gops-contradictory-principles-make-a-perfect-recipe-for-fascism/ Like your takes, worth the time to take a read. May everyone's day be filled with light on a dark day for the people of Maine. Be kind. It costs nothing.
I keep ranting in my comments about tump 2.0 et al being gangsters and setting the US back 70 to 125 years.
It’s beyond nuts, it’s insane.
I keep ranting about the betrayal of the billionaire elite 1% on this mass majority when this criminal system has cooked and changed the climate for everyone forever.
I keep talking about maintaining an intellectual self defence, as you said moral and ethical self defence in the face on the selling their BS and lies and look who trump 2.0 is appointing now. OMG.
Thanks for all your insights and keep going for all our sanity for all the insanities to come.
It is a gift we get to learn from you thank you
Thank you again for your unique ability to bring honest clarity and truth to difficult and threatening challenges. What is clear is that most of us already actually know the things you take the time to unravel but refuse to act upon it.
Another excellent piece. Because of my background, I might be more inclined to see this as the inevitable late stages of capitalism. Of course that alone doesn't explain everything. You so eloquently sprinkle in the uniquely American ingredients that have lead to this stage, but the end result is largely driven, IMO, by the relentless profiteering and the legitimation required to facilitate it. It eventually destabilizes society to the point where the majority find it increasingly hard to stay tethered to some communal sense of truth and subsequently and, to a large extent, unconsciously also lose a sense of their collective power. It is in that instant that authoritarians begin to arise. And we now see that has begun to appear in the wealthiest and allegedly most 'democratic' of nations. Tyranny isn't just for poor countries anymore.
Respectfully, A “Rape and Pillage” macroeconomic architecture has nothing to do with capitalism.
Broken hearted that you're leaving Gaslit Nation.
The work you and Andrea did was immense. And though I'm sure you'll both still be in fight, wish you were still side by side through this next very turbulent time.
Peace ✌️.
I remember when you gave this talk, and somehow I found a video of it online. Your words are as powerful and insightful today as they were then. Thank you for your persistence and courage, your bold and inspiring truthtelling. I have no doubt that it comes with a cost. I hope you have many ways to mitigate that cost and take good care of yourself.
Thanks for this. It was a good read that I needed today, as I have punched a door frame in anger at all the corruption and convenient ignoring of atrocities (I'm also guilty of this sometimes to preserve mental health), that goes on in the world today - especially from the corruption cancer node of the world called russia.
It's hard for me to accurately describe how pathetic I think the powerful narcissists of the world are, that mess over so many millions of people by abusing that power and how it seems to be so hard to hold them accountable, even with their extremely obvious shinanigans that they overwhelm you with.
Thank you for doing a substack - and for sharing this piece. I'm here for all of it. I do believe we are here to get at the rot and sow seeds for a just and honest future that we may not see. The way you write simultaneously soothes me and pierces my open broken heart at the same time. There is indeed "perverse freedom in being abandoned." Personally, I've experienced that many times over. Yet, I agree that it is our moral and ethical obligation to at least try to make our world better. At my core, I've always known that to be true. Grateful for all you do. Keep writing please.
Again, how Sarah's command of history and the lens of her education and experience can draw connections that many would miss, and reveal the emotional and sociological forces at play at each time. I am always left thinking about further reading, whether here, or over on Gaslitnation. I simply can't keep up, and my ability to steep myself in so much darkness is limited. I have to keep looking to 'self-care' to be able to come back in order to absorb more, or to have tough conversations with friends and acquiantances about what I find.
Last week my self-care was to spend a cold, damp Sunday morning crawling through undergrowth with binoculars and camera on a local riverbank, seeking a family of river otters, who friends of mine had spotted. No luck this time, but the peace I gained warmed me,
“And it is our job, our ethical obligation, to move it for the better.”
There it is. This is what I’ve missed these past few months.
Thanks Sarah for republishing your work as your warnings & history lessons have always been spot on!
I hope that more people will share & financially support your work here and your following will grow over time to reach the likes of Heather Cox Richardson! Cheers!
P.S. Please also share your past audio & video commentary as part of your posts. Thom Hartmann, Michael Moore, Steve Schmidt, Judd Legum & Dean Obeidallah do a great job of mixing up their content media.
Definitely start your Podcast & YouTube channel to complement posts here. I’m delighted to consume GaslitNation on YouTube even when not seeing Andrea on screen since YouTube is my #1 place as we wind down Twitter.
Hope this helps you strategize your Substack content as it’s from the view of a long time fan who has bought all your books and consider you a trusted truth teller & historian.
I read this yesterday afternoon, upon return from a morning of sitting in on probation violation hearings, which are always a sad parade of members of our suffering, invisible underclass. It was an especially intense session, including several defendants who have been unable to comply with probation requirements due to homelessness, and the hearing officer spent a lot of time giving pep talks and words of encouragement. As I exited the room I commented on how intense it had been to the hearing officer, a man of about 60. He said: it's the day of homelessness. My way there and back is a bike trail lined with tent encampments that popped up about 18 months ago, and are highly visible along all of our extensive river trail network. Two years ago, there was not a single tent along the trails. So, your connection of America's ongoing, simmering, unacknowledged authoritarianism hit hard and I'm still processing it. Thanks for ending your essay on a note of hope, because boy it sure looks dark when you dare to take a look around the edges.
This article, very lengthy, is one of the most significant pieces I have ever read. Start reading when you have the time to read it all. It compares what the world is going through now with other times in history. It is wonderful.
Sarah, I subscribe to John Pavlovitz and he had this to say about grief: Grief is a solitary road. Even if we are fortunate enough to have people alongside us during the journey, (as I have been), no one can really travel all the way with us. Our pain and our path are as individual as the relationship we share with the person we've lost. He has many columns on the subject if you wish to google him, John Pavlovitz on Grief. Also, as you travel around, may want to go down into Arkansas, to the Subiaco Abbey in Subiaco, AR. They welcome everyone. Chancey DeVega at Salon had an interesting interview with Gavriel D. Rosenfeld, the President of the Center for Jewish History in New York City and Professor of History at Fairfield University. Rosenfeld is the author of numerous books, including the new co-edited volume (with Janet Ward), Fascism in America: Past and Present, The Fourth Reich: The Specter of Nazism from World War II to the Present, and Hi Hitler! How the Nazi Past is Being Normalized in Contemporary Culture. https://www.salon.com/2023/10/24/plutocrats-and-populists-the-gops-contradictory-principles-make-a-perfect-recipe-for-fascism/ Like your takes, worth the time to take a read. May everyone's day be filled with light on a dark day for the people of Maine. Be kind. It costs nothing.
Wow!
Awesome speech… so many insights.
I keep ranting in my comments about tump 2.0 et al being gangsters and setting the US back 70 to 125 years.
It’s beyond nuts, it’s insane.
I keep ranting about the betrayal of the billionaire elite 1% on this mass majority when this criminal system has cooked and changed the climate for everyone forever.
I keep talking about maintaining an intellectual self defence, as you said moral and ethical self defence in the face on the selling their BS and lies and look who trump 2.0 is appointing now. OMG.
Thanks for all your insights and keep going for all our sanity for all the insanities to come.
To go further down the rabbit hole on these issues check out -
https://open.substack.com/pub/geopoliticaleconomy/p/blackrock-doesnt-matter-us-election-trump-kamala-harris?r=3pd49j&utm_medium=ios
And -
https://open.substack.com/pub/charleshughsmith/p/the-seeds-of-social-revolution-extreme?r=3pd49j&utm_medium=ios
Maybe this is a solution, can’t lock everyone at the same time -
https://open.substack.com/pub/fraterchaos/p/if-not-now-when?r=3pd49j&utm_medium=ios
Thank you Sarah. Reading this on 11/10/24, after Trump was re-elected after apparently winning the electoral college and the popular vote. Surreal.