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Susan Heath's avatar

Thank you and good riddance to 2025! I agree that 2026 will be tough ... I'm grateful that you'll be sharing your thoughts and spreading the hard truths we all need to hear. Best wishes to you and everyone in this community you've created.

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spinfisher's reel life's avatar

This whole article is awesome. The paragraph starting with “we are not suited for authoritarianism” is just pure brilliance. Really appreciated this essay!

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Robert Heise's avatar

I don't know how you managed to write this essay, but I'm glad I read it.

I hope you had fun at the parties!

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CI Carlson's avatar

Dress as a coyote!

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Mitch Ritter's avatar

Last of the Brooklyn coyotes....

I'm glad you are showering and dressing for New Year's Eve 2026 as though you've awoken in the deeply depressed then (with banks bailed out and that finance template set for the century...) New Deal hedged and WW II then Korea War E-Con-O-Boost decades of new fortune building in time for the next tax-payer bail-outs and Public Investment BOOM barely a step ahead of next Private Sector BUST in this nation where we've "always picked ourselves up by our own bootstraps and Dust Bowl'd ourselves off and made "OUR" next fortune, barely giving any thought to public infrastructure at all....

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Last_of_the_Brooklyn_Cowboys

https://www.nypap.org/preservation-history/robert-moses/

https://thebrooklyninstitute.com/items/courses/new-york/robert-moses-power-urban-planning-and-inequality-3/

Arriving agog and Magog in the roaring 60's out of the Beat '50's:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NH3WfqZKSe4

Putney Swope | Black Comedy Masterpiece | Full Movie HD | Subversive Humor

https://dangerousminds.net/comments/putney_swope_this_politically-incorrect_masterpiece_is_the_great_unheralded/

https://www.everand.com/podcast/419098484/138-Pt-1-Sorry-To-Bother-You-Putney-Swope-1969-Capitalism-race-and-what-it-takes-to-burn-down-an-unjust-system

Now talk amongst yerselves....

Tio Mitchito

Mitch Ritter\Paradigm Sifters, Code Shifters, PsalmSong Chasers

Lay-Low Studios, Ore-Wa (Refuge of A-Tone-ment Seekers)

Media Discussion List\Looksee

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Bill Flarsheim's avatar

Thank you. Rousing prep for 2026. The last half minds me of George C. Scott's speech at the beginning of Patton.

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Robert Gardner's avatar

Great piece. I tell you what, if Laura Jedeed can be optimistic, that means something. I feel the same thing, the weakening of Trumpism, the blatant incompetency of the cabinet, and the reaction of ordinary people. I think the mid terms will tell the tale, and I am optimistic about them. Of course, some of this is wishful thinking on my part, but I just feel like the wind is at our back for a change and the assholes are deflating. Happy New Year!

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Karen Puckett's avatar

I always enjoy your writing!

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Quality Control's avatar

Last new year's eve I think I sent you a message basically saying, "what the fuck?" But I too feel better now than I did then for pretty much the reasons you state here. So this year I'm just going to say, here is to a better 2026 and here's to you. May you continue to kick ass and stay safe. And hey maybe we can even occasionally have fun

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Charles Calli's avatar

Rhetorical question,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Is there a plan to take your work "underground" in the event "it" goes WAY off the rails?

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Laura Jedeed's avatar

Not a specific one, but that's definitely the general idea

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Frank Jacquette's avatar

Welcome back.

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Deb Coon's avatar

Great to have you back! An inspiring newsletter. I love the line (among many others), "But this is America goddamnit, and it’s hard to overestimate how much we dislike being told what to do." I'm looking forward to the next year with you, seeing all the kinds of creatively good trouble that Americans can make when they're up against an authoritarian regime. Here's to a hard but good year to come...

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