Caroline welcomes Jeff Sharlet, investigative culture doctor-journalist, author of The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, (and more)…
May danger serve as incentive to be good Citizen at this “time of Dire Beauty.”Jeff Sharlet is the nationally bestselling author of The Family (2008), described by Barbara Ehrenreich as “one of the most compelling and brilliantly researched exposes you’ll ever read.” His most recent book is This Brilliant Darkness: A Book of Strangers (2020). “Known for immersion journalism that is more immersed than most people are willing to go, and for a prose style that is somehow both fierce and soulful, Jeff Sharlet dives deep into the darkness around us and awaiting us.” https://bookshop.org/books/this-brilliant-darkness-a-book-of-strangers/9781324003205
“Sharlet’s interest in religion developed during childhood. Sharlet’s mother was from a Pentecostal Christian background. His father is of secular Jewish background. Raised in an eclectic religious environment, attending various people’s churches and temples, he has said that he gravitates to stories about people’s beliefs as the most natural way to engage the world.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Sharlet_(writer)
Netflix: The docuseries is based on the books, The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power and C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy, written by Jeff Sharlet, who lived with the group as a young man, and is extensively interviewed in the five episodes.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JeffSharlet
Yo team,
the antidote is next to the poison.
Today, tre45on, tweeted maybe “delay” the election…and insisted on having $377 million to renovate the White House, as Melania is also set to re-do the rose garden…. (No, you cheap churlish cruel grifter, being frog-marched out of the White House, to be sent to a quiet retreat center with no wi-fi or phone…)
and John Lewis was honored (watched the whole 4 hours… Obama- relevant rousing), and here be what John Lewis wrote before he died, to be published on the day of his funeral:
(copied for those who cannot link to the NY Times article)
Today, tre45on, tweeted maybe “delay” the election…and insisted on having $377 million to renovate the White House, as Melania is also set to re-do the rose garden…. (No, you cheap churlish cruel grifter, being frog-marched out of the White House, to be sent to a quiet retreat center with no wi-fi or phone…)
and John Lewis was honored (watched the whole 4 hours… Obama- relevant rousing), and here be what John Lewis wrote before he died, to be published on the day of his funeral:
(copied for those who cannot link to the NY Times article)
John Lewis: Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation NY Times July 30, 2020
“Though I am gone, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. ”
While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.
That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.
Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.
Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.
Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.
Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.
You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, though decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.
Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”
“John Lewis, the civil rights leader and congressman who died on July 17, wrote this essay shortly before his death.”
Below be his chart, the show’s chart, and election day chart,
and you can see the guiding resonance between the latter two,
same rising, same MC/IC-we toss a line from now to then…
That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.
Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars.
Though I was surrounded by two loving parents, plenty of brothers, sisters and cousins, their love could not protect me from the unholy oppression waiting just outside that family circle. Unchecked, unrestrained violence and government-sanctioned terror had the power to turn a simple stroll to the store for some Skittles or an innocent morning jog down a lonesome country road into a nightmare. If we are to survive as one unified nation, we must discover what so readily takes root in our hearts that could rob Mother Emanuel Church in South Carolina of her brightest and best, shoot unwitting concertgoers in Las Vegas and choke to death the hopes and dreams of a gifted violinist like Elijah McClain.
Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.
Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble. Voting and participating in the democratic process are key. The vote is the most powerful nonviolent change agent you have in a democratic society. You must use it because it is not guaranteed. You can lose it.
You must also study and learn the lessons of history because humanity has been involved in this soul-wrenching, existential struggle for a very long time. People on every continent have stood in your shoes, though decades and centuries before you. The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time. Continue to build union between movements stretching across the globe because we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others.
Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”
“John Lewis, the civil rights leader and congressman who died on July 17, wrote this essay shortly before his death.”
Below be his chart, the show’s chart, and election day chart,
and you can see the guiding resonance between the latter two,
same rising, same MC/IC-we toss a line from now to then…
When we ask, “What’s gonna happen?”
Divinatory languages respond, that is so not the question…
But, rather, what is available as dance partners..
to craftily animate the desirable into being…
Let’s remember Dion Fortune in the middle of WWII, saying, part of our necessary serenity, whereby to be in cahoots with the Soul of the Nation, was our dedicated certainty of the desirable out come. Fully informed of the danger, but unwavering in our focused Vision.
Well, tis that time, folks…I am crafting a venue, probably on Patreon, for fellow aspiring agents of Liberating Trickster, keeper of democracy, protector of life, dedicated to collective well-being, to really work with the election chart…
John Lewis, A Pisces Dragon – earth, water, fire, no air – seriously dedicated. Born a few weeks before the Edmund Pettus Bridge was completed and named after that head of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. Let’s re-name it now in John’s honor.
I love his animistic Mars, re-blooming the Earth, strong enough to be gentle, quntiles Chiron, the Mentor-Centaur. He had mentors, he is a mentor. And began his oratory, age 8, preaching with his chickens, and also addressing, grass, dirt, wind, all beings.
Good Trouble is our business… Eris trines his Pluto, disrupt the inauthentic.
The Pisces Leo conversation in his chart (Moon Pluto Leo, sesquiquadrate Mercury 17+ Pisces, “in a tent villages witness a spectacular performance.” and quincunx his Sun) is happening now.. That Leo performance, be beneficial to all beings… not performance, in usual sense, but spiritual magic…
Venus and Jupiter are both at 10+Aries = “ruler of a Nation” square Chiron…
May we conjure the worthy ruler of a nation by gazing at the caravan of our past mentors…animating the desirable leadership…
Here be the show, with deep delving Jeff Sharlet, with its Thor’s hammer, Sun, Neptune, Moon.
Thor’s hammer would sweep corruption out of the halls of governance. So, everyone, let’s see that, even give it a few swings, overthrow the grifters…
Saturn is on the US Pluto… Death or rebirth of democracy Take your pick! cake or death?
Thor’s hammer would sweep corruption out of the halls of governance. So, everyone, let’s see that, even give it a few swings, overthrow the grifters…
Saturn is on the US Pluto… Death or rebirth of democracy Take your pick! cake or death?
and lookey- same rising 11+ Scorpio, the Renaissance Council…twill take that… who brought what…?
Gonna take some deliberate dedication…(Capricorn team)
Saturn quintiles Chiron… working to invite mentors from back-stage to partnered on-stage…
and same MC – “Zuni Indians perform a majestic ritual to the Sun…” gonna take that too…
as well as the IC: “White dove descends bearing a message of peace.”
May John Lewis’ beautiful blessing – from his deathbed, resound in our hearts and throughout the world:
Gonna take some deliberate dedication…(Capricorn team)
Saturn quintiles Chiron… working to invite mentors from back-stage to partnered on-stage…
and same MC – “Zuni Indians perform a majestic ritual to the Sun…” gonna take that too…
as well as the IC: “White dove descends bearing a message of peace.”
May John Lewis’ beautiful blessing – from his deathbed, resound in our hearts and throughout the world:
“Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe.
In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war.
So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”
In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.
When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war.
So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide.”
