us down.

Can we recover? Maybe, but the millions who will suffer and the ones who will suffer greatly.

The immigrants fleeing bombing in Syria who are now told "stay away from the US, they dont care about you"

Can we recover our name, or decency? I dont know, we cant ONLY blame putin and the GOP, every person who "held their nose", every person who said the words "email" or "private server" has to take blame.

And it really fucking pisses me off. Who in their right mind chooses not to know?

You don't have to 'choose' not to know. It's being chosen for us as the media keeps getting bought up by the right wing propaganda system.

That's why they demonize the so-called liberal media.

As pessimistic as I am about what may very well happen, I think that yes, once 'we' regain control, and if we can bring sanity back, the world will be with us. Even now I suspect 'the world' pretty much knows what is going on and that it is the 'mafia' presently in control. It is not what 'real' Americans are..


Although it will be a long time in coming.. decades... after the destruction of our democracy...

Or am I just really naive? Could be.

While your average GOP base voter deserves blame, I blame GOP billionaire propagandists as much or more. Murdoch. Mercer. Koch. These people have tried to brainwash America to hate everyone but straight white men. And they have largely succeeded. Propaganda works. I blame the GOP propagandists.

The corporations buy our politicians to get the FCC to allow the consolidation into media oligarchies designed to program the population to suit their interests. These same politicians make the laws that allow business to get their way in all things and the propaganda to keep them.

We have to end legalized bribery of the politicians and require truth in news reporting. Reagan started the slide when he ended the Fairness Doctrine. We became hyper-partisan soon after with Rush Limpballs and Fox. If we do not make big changes when we kick out the Republicans this next time we will continue to swirl down the toilet.

Been watching netgeo history channel hitler documentaries and the close similaries are scary. The hate going on against Blacks, Mexicans, immigrants, LGBTQ and Muslims are a little too close for my comfort. Everyday I wake up fearing the end of democracy is nearing its end. November 2018 if the votes are again hacked it will be the end of the USA and a great fracturing will occur.

stupidity does that.

Republican billionaires like their voters to be dumb.

I homeschooled two boys. One for 8 years and the other for 6 years.

One made a perfect SAT score and is doing well at the university of his choice. The other is in a top tier school I won't name for his privacy and mine. They both are successful socially, and have always been more mature than their peers.

We've all heard horror stories about neglected children who are kept home under the pretense they are being homeschooled. And there are religious fanatics who teach the Bible instead of science. In our VERY large homeschooling community, I've never seen this. I see highly motivated parents who work very hard to prepare their children for the future.

There are also parents who use homeschooling to teach their precocious (or delayed) children so they can pursue their own unique interests. When my youngest reached 9th grade, he wanted access to opportunities at our public high school, so we enrolled him. The transition was seamless. He had no issues and we both LOVED the high school experience. The beautiful thing, is we still have a wonderful relationship today. We are very close.

You're not alone in your prejudice of homeschooling, reinforced by the occasional sensational news story, but you are uninformed.

Yes homeschooling can be good. Good for you and glad it worked well.

But DeVos and Bradley and Seattle advocate for their fundy followers to homeschool for two reasons: brainwash kids into conservatism and pull funds away from public schools.

To see that the majority of homeschoolers are gop conservatives, check this out. This is the first shopping link I got in a google search for “science homeschooling books”
https://www.christianbook.com/gods-design-for-science-complete-curriculum/debbie-lawrence/pd/331071

“God’s design for science” aka Creationism, anti-science. That’s why so many conservatives homeschool.

Again, glad it worked for you.

Attacking homeschooling ignores the reality that 1.5 million kids are homeschooled and we are not all Christian Fundies. Each family can customize a program to meet the unique needs of the student and the family. The point of homeschooling is to enable parents to pick and choose. I happen to be an atheist, so your over-generalizing caught my attention.

Perhaps, being more specific like "Christian fundie homeschoolers" rather than just "homeschoolers" when you want to call attention to the GOP's efforts to deny science and dumb down the population would prevent you from generalizing to the point of inaccuracy.

I hope that's more clear. BTW, I totally agree with your objection to fundie homeschooling. But, my experience over many years, with hundreds of families in my community, is the educational standards were very high.

On edit: non religious materials are easy to find if you are looking for them. We had no trouble.

We just need to watch out for the homeschooling lobby, which is primarily fundies and billionaire-funded. DeVos is involved. Goal: damage public schools.

For example we should all be for regulation for homeschooling to make sure kids actually learn, and learn about science. But the homeschooling lobby wants no regulation.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/despite-concerns-over-child-safety-homeschool-lobby-aims-to-avoid-regulation


http://www.slate.com/articles/life/education/2015/08/home_school_legal_defense_association_how_a_home_schooling_group_fights.html

And have taught homeschooled kids at the undergraduate level. The degree to which those kids were brainwashed was shocking. But yes those were from fundie homeschooled families.

Your experience sounds a lot better, so good for you and your sons. Maybe what we need is just better regulation to make sure homeschooled kids are not brainwashed.

to the survival of our planet! You are doing very important work for the future of mankind.

I imagine it is frustrating for you to see the ideation of ignorance in our society. (Somehow education is elitist.) Not only must you see our institutions being threatened, but you know, more than most, how threatened our very existence is.

Our family was sooooo lucky to have Obama during my childrens' formative years. The ways he impacted their daily lives in a positive way were too many to count. I believe my kids' character was as much influenced by his example as by ours. It sickens me to see the loathsome behavior of today's leaders and know the long term impact this may have on families and children. And, as you said, the orchestrated effort by the republicans to undermine public schools is underway. Our experience with public school was such a positive one, I hope dems can get the train back on track before it's too late.


Thank you again for this back and forth. I've enjoyed it and am pleased to interact for the first time with an actual climate scientist.

Thanks for pushing me to clarify here.

And I still like to play some of Obama’s speeches for my kids too. His speech at Howard’s graduation was so good.

GOTV in 2018- it’s the only way we can rescue the country.