ICE, TRUMP and ideas

 

30 Real Things You Can Do Right Now to Stop ICE and the Slide Into Authoritarianism Being Liberal · Jan 13 Read full story For a party that has treated Texas as untouchable and Hispanic voters as a newly conquered bloc, Rove’s warning reflects a growing reality Republicans are struggling to manage: policies that play well on cable news do not always translate into durable coalitions, especially when voters begin to feel targeted rather than courted. Rove did not frame his comments as a moral critique. This was not about empathy or reform. It was about numbers, trends, and risk. And the message was stark: if Hispanic support continues to slide, Texas stops being a fortress, and the GOP’s entire electoral map starts to look a lot less comfortable. Watch the video below: You’re part of the Being Liberal community—free, independent, and proudly progressive since 2009. Together, we’re bringing 2.5 million followers to Substack to strengthen the next era of independent journalism. Every upgrade fuels our mission. Join the supporters’ circle. The 24 monks and Aloka have made me think so much! I'll be posting information for me and you. Today is my peaceful day https://youtu.be/tmfniS33GXQ?si=uvKn-w1Bd1JwiCUM   Venerable Bhikkhu Pannakara,s most emotional speech. -----------------------------------------------  AND THE PRESIDENCY’S BEEN HIJACKED BY DEAD-UP GANGSTER The air hangs heavy. Thick with expectation deferred. Accountability abandoned. People move through streets and halls as if dragging invisible chains. Each glance measured. Each step deliberate. Spectacle dominates substance. Noise swallows reflection. Yet, in the shadows, some refuse to yield. They insist on attention. On patience. On action. The work is never in the flourish of words but in making goodness visible. Contagious. Irresistible… Courage is not abstract. Empathy is practice. Integrity is not a luxury postponed. If we cannot, by word, deed, and example, make love, joy, healing, and bravery visible so others witness and act, lamentation is insufficient. We must act. Steadily. Persistently. Without pretense… Hypocrisy thrives where virtue is acknowledged but denied. Those who study it, nod to it, then turn away are the dead-up gangsters. Brother Trump is a  dead-up gangster. Dead-up gangster. I know, I had a misspent youth. The phrase names a posture. A refusal to anchor power with responsibility. A recognition of what fear exploits. Visibility is resistance. Principle is friction. Courage accumulates quietly… Fear moves silently through offices, corridors, neighborhoods. It feeds on hesitation. Deferred decisions. Unspoken threats. Those who wield it rely on its invisibility. Yet quiet resistance disrupts its rhythm. Integrity grows through deliberate acts: refusing coercion, speaking truth, offering care. Each small, visible act strengthens the lattice of moral resistance, an architecture invisible to those who mistake power for dominance… Communities are the scaffolding of enduring courage. A teacher insists on fairness. A neighbor shares what little remains. A clerk refuses bribes. Each repeated act strengthens the structure. Patterns emerge. Standards are reinforced. Courage ripples outward. The ordinary becomes extraordinary through consistent, visible labor. The invisible becomes durable… Power appears absolute only when unobserved. Abuses seem limitless until illuminated. Those who act with integrity make it visible. They create friction within systems designed to evade accountability. Principle becomes enforceable. Courage and empathy shape expectation. Small, repeated acts bend society. One is never enough, but their accumulation transforms reality… History does not bend to spectacle alone. It bends to consistency. To the accumulation of principle. Repeated, deliberate choices produce structures capable of resisting the most entrenched intimidation. Those who seem invincible are often temporary. Those who embody patience, courage, and integrity endure. They shape culture quietly. They prove that visible virtue carries weight the invisible cannot claim… Leadership is not a title. It is choice. It is constancy. Acting with integrity when compromise offers comfort. Insisting on accountability when shortcuts promise ease. Maintaining compassion where cynicism thrives. These are acts of countervailing force. Measured. Repeated. Durable. The architecture of moral resistance is built in discipline, not spectacle… Resistance is pedagogical. Witness teaches. Observation inspires. The child who sees honesty modeled emulates it. The neighbor who observes fairness replicates it. Countervailing forces grow through example. They demand patience. Repetition. Visibility. Fear cannot be countered with words alone. Principle must be lived… Trump is a dead-up gangster. Dead-up gangster. Repetition anchors understanding. It names patterns of power that evade responsibility. It instructs in the architecture of resistance. Even entrenched intimidation falters before persistent, principled action. Scaffolds of courage endure… Plato warned in The Republic, "Might makes Right". The lesson is not license for brute force but a caution. Without conscious moral architecture, power seeks only its own justification. When those in control abandon principle, when they cloak ambition in spectacle, society bends toward the strongest, the cruelest, the most unprincipled. God will not be mocked. You reap what you sow. The chickens come home to roost… The work of countervailing forces is generational. It transcends the individual. It demands modeling, persistence, slow ethical labor across families, institutions, and communities. Imperfection is no excuse. Small interventions compound. Visible courage multiplies. Over time, it forms a lattice capable of sustaining society, challenging fear, guiding generations. Each deliberate act contributes. Each refusal to participate in injustice strengthens it. Each choice of empathy adds to its durability… Action absorbs anxiety. Participation defeats despair. Fear may roar. Domination may appear absolute. Yet disciplined, repeated principle creates permanence. Resistance is accumulative. Relational. Embodied. The arc of society does not bend through slogans alone. It bends through visible labor, patience, courage, repeated example. Each act of integrity reinforces expectation. Each refusal to cooperate with injustice teaches resistance. Each choice of empathy shapes culture. Over time, this lattice of courage sustains communities, influences systems, guides moral trajectory… Countervailing forces require no applause. No headlines. No spectacle. They require consistency. Visibility. Perseverance. Invisible scaffolds emerge where communities, families, institutions, and individuals act. They operate quietly yet powerfully. They outlast fear. Endure beyond the moment. They remain unshaken by circumstance. Built on principle. Not circumstance. Built on labor. Not spectacle… In this world of invisible weights, the dead-up gangsters roam. They wield fear as others wield swords. They assume invulnerability, seeing only short-term gain. Yet the scaffold grows beneath their gaze. Might may make right, but virtue persists in patient, visible accumulation. The moral lattice strengthens quietly. Bending the arc of human consequence. Those who act with courage and principle seed endurance. Each act multiplies. Accumulates. Teaches… When God will not be mocked, when reaping follows sowing, when chickens inevitably return home to roost, the scaffolds endure. They will not bend. They will not break. They are built of patience. Ethics. Courage. Care. And in them, the world tilts slowly but undeniably toward justice… Brother Trump is a dead-up gangster. Dead-up gangster. The phrase names the void left by abdicated responsibility. Yet it also marks the edge of resistance. The line between those who exploit power and those who bear it with conscience. Between spectacle and labor. Between fear and principle. Visibility is the weapon. Integrity is the shield. Courage is the accumulation that outlasts the strongest hand… This is the work of countervailing forces. The slow, deliberate, repeated labor of visible virtue. The quiet multiplication of courage. The scaffolding of principle. The inheritance of the patient. The architecture of society bent toward justice not by spectacle but by steady, resolute, repeated acts of responsibility… Brother Trump is a dead-up gangster. Dead-up gangster. Remember the phrase. Repeat it. Let it anchor understanding. Let it teach the patterns of power that evade responsibility. Let it remind that patience, persistence, principle endure where fear and spectacle crumble… The world may seem heavy. Quiet with tension. Yet the scaffolds are rising. Slowly. Deliberately. Visible to those who watch. Felt by those who participate. The accumulation of integrity, courage, empathy bends society incrementally but inexorably toward what is right… Steadfast. Persistent. Enduring…✠ Dr. David Anthony, Cardinal Brother Phillips, AOJ, PhD