Welcome to the Resistance: Part II

2010 APUSH grads

Hello again. I am writing today because the world is on fire and I don’t know what else

to do. What else is there to do, really, other than resurrect our old high school blog?

When we started Liberal Ladies Restoring Reason, it was 2010. We were 18 and 17 and

had just witnessed the first midterms of our young politically active life. Alisa got to vote,

but I didn’t turn 18 until a few weeks after the election.

We went to high school in what felt like a small town in Florida at a prep school where

we were amongst very few other people like us, at least outwardly. Queer people,

people of color, and most importantly Democrats, were scarce in our class.

As two liberal ladies, we bonded early over our love for Weeds, the show not the

obviously should be legal drug and the fact that Elizabethtown is unquestionably the

worst movie ever made. Oh and of course, Barack Obama.

We, like pretty much everyone else our age that didn’t go to our high school loved Barack.

We were so disappointed that we hadn’t gotten to vote for him in 2008 and made a pact

to vote for him in 2012 no matter what.

I ended up having to send in an absentee ballot, but I texted a picture of it to Alisa

before I mailed it in.

After the blue wave in 2008, I was comfortable in my ignorance. I think this is a feeling

most of us had, give or take a drone strike, until October 2016, when shit got really real.

But in 2010, we realized that the Tea Party was no joke. I was frustrated that no one was

talking about politics at school, and that everyone’s parents just told them what to think.

To be fair, our parents are proud Democrats and definitely led us in that direction.

But our parents were right. And that’s what matters.

To be honest, I’m not really sure how the blog started. I know that we were frustrated

and I know that Bill Maher was getting us all riled up and we felt like we didn't have an

outlet and the midterm elections were coming up and it didn’t look good for our guy.

So, we wrote.

We started this blog. Liberal Ladies Restoring Reason. Because that’s what we

thought we wanted to do. That was our message. That people are acting unreasonably.

That they’re ignoring facts and using harmful rhetoric and just plain lying.

Lying is a funny word. The media still doesn’t really like it. It doesn’t matter how

many times Donald Trump or members of his staff do it. The people on TV or writing

the op-eds we all read will dance around it, using stupid euphemisms.

But that’s really more for a future post. And there will be one.

Because the thing is, in 2011 we graduated. And went to college. And our guy came

through for us, we thought. We got to vote for him in 2012, and we dropped the ball

on the blog.

Our frustrations were actually shared with classmates, though at different schools.

We had an outlet.

Well now we’ve graduated again. Alisa is such an overachiever she’s already

graduated twice.

While all that is great, our guy is gone.

And this new guy.. he sucks.

Like he really fucking sucks.

And we have to pay attention. And that kind of sucks too.

Cliché of the day: there’s just so much news!

And there is. And it can be really hard to turn it off. It seems like we have to choose

between reading/ watching everything or nothing because the everything is too much

to bare.

It’s a difficult line I know I’ve been walking where I know that reading everything isn’t

working for me. I’m having trouble sleeping and focusing and not crying in my car or

pausing my political podcasts to scream.

It would be so easy to just stop. And I have friends who have stopped. They don’t know

which moron just got hired to work in the White House or which nightmare was

nominated to the Supreme Court or which criminals are being indicted. I don’t judge

them for it.

But the thing is, I kind of feel like we have to try to  stick it out. At least a little.

Try to not just shut down. To care about Brett Kavanaugh and Ariana Grande and

Pete Davidson. To listen to Drake and Jake Tapper. To follow @AmandaSeales and

@AlyssaMastro44 and @JonFavs. To care about How Did this Get Made and

Pod Save America. To read books by Ben Rhodes and Ronan Farrow and Rhetta.

To watch Last Week Tonight with John Oliver and Brooklyn Nine-Nine.

To at split our time a little more equitably between pop culture and news.

Some days the balance may shift, the news may be too painful to be 50/50

with pop culture. Some days we can’t think about children being separated from their

families, so we need to read an article ranking all the episodes of Sex and the City or stalk

our hair influencers.

Some days, things won’t be so grim and we’ll be able to accommodate more news. It still

won’t be everything or be able to command all of our focus or attention. But it’ll be there.

And so will we.

We’re bring this blog back from the depths of the internet. We’re going to leave up our

old posts from when we were just kids and we still had a sane president. But we’re older

now, and we know more and we’re ready to share it.

And if this still feels like screaming into the void, then so be it.

But at least we’ll be screaming together.

Welcome back to the resistance Liberal Ladies Blog.

We’re happy to be here.  

Daily Thoughts

It has been a long time since I updated this blog, and for that I am sorry. As a relatively young lady, it is well within my nature to be a touch flakey. This is a terrible trait that I am trying my best to grow out of. I have a lot of thoughts and they need to be expressed... so here goes:


I would like to start by sharing a story, a short anecdote if you will. My school received a donation a few months ago of two television sets to be placed in a "hang-out" area on campus. For the first two weeks, the televisions remained on CNN, an actual news station. For some reason, unknown to me or my fellow liberal ladies, the televisions were changed to FOX news. I am not going to use this story as a place to express my not so glowing views on FOX news, as everyone knows it's right-wing conservative propaganda designed to brainwash its viewers with half-truths and misinformation. Instead, I will continue with the story. After seeing this change, I assume someone complained, because I witnessed the tv returning to CNN after a few days. I also witnessed the uproar that came from my fellow students about two minutes later. They yelled so much, that the administrator felt so much pressure, he returned the tv to FOX, where it remains to this day. This change upsets me so much that I cringe whenever I walk into this area of school. My friends all expressed unhappiness with the decision, yet made no effort to do anything. One of my friends made a feeble attempt in asking one of the adults if it could be changed, to which he replied he didn't have the remote. Though I fully intend to take the situation into my own hands very shortly, I think this situation mirrors perfectly the kind of apathy that exists among people today. Why is it that people with the most radical and insane ideas are the loudest, and often the only voices heard? Does it make sense that people with reasonable ideas are shut out of the conversation, because they don't hold up crazy signs or make sweeping generalizations about entire groups of people? We need to do something about this disinterest among moderate, or at least reasonable people. Let's allow some new people a turn to talk, we've heard enough from some of you. And yes I am talking to you Sarah Palin. Oh and Mike Huckabee.. but more about him later.


I also recently attended the UN Commission on the Status of Women conference in New York. This conference reaffirmed for me the incredible power of women. I have been thinking a lot about the effect women have on the environment and politics and everything, and it really is staggering. There is so much talk about the power of the white male, but women have so much more power than we realize. We may not be able to harness the power just yet, but its there. I am entirely confident that women can affect real change. All it will take is some organizing, and this will come. To all the ladies out there that are feeling impatient or like they can't make a difference, I say keep fighting. Your power is there, I promise you. Sometimes it just takes a little bit longer to be utilized fully. As the primary consumers, women have the power to literally decide what products are popular and essentially created. We have the power to shut down or change big evil corporations that are harming the environment and our fellow people. I am of course not suggesting that all women should reject men and male ideas, I just wanted to share with you that women are more powerful than you may first think. 

For more information about the CSW, I would highly recommend checking out the website: http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/55sess.htm




I do want to take this opportunity to criticize Mike Huckabee for his criticism of Natalie Portman's pregnancy and his ridiculous statements about unwed mothers, but I think after my talk about the power of women, I will leave my inevitable harangue for another day. Thanks for reading liberal ladies. 

FOOD

I apologize for the gap between posts, but I've been doing some serious thinking. I recently went to a vegetarian festival, and was astounded at how happy and healthy everyone looked. It was nice not to have to scan the menu while thinking in my head meat, meat, meat, BINGO VEGGIES! As a vegan, being able to eat anything on a menu is a luxury that most meat eaters take for granted. I found myself wondering why life couldn't be like the festival. Everyone happy and healthy and not eating food that will kill them. 


Through all this thinking, Liberal ladies, I have have decided to share my conclusions. Be prepared... I'm about to drop a serious truth bomb on you (most likely no one got that reference because I'm the only person in the world who watches Cougar Town).


Americans have a terrible diet. While this might not be news to you, the extent to which the food we eat is literally killing us is relatively unknown to many people. Meat and Dairy products have been found to have a slew of disease causing agents. I'm not going to bore you with dozens of statistics about the damaging effects of America's fascination with harmful substances. I will say though, that if you are eating meat or dairy, you are killing yourself. This isn't just me being a preachy vegan, it's just science. Not only do these "foods" make you fat, which is a rapid death accelerator, but they also have been known to cause Cancer along with other scary diseases like Parkinson's, Heart Attack, Stroke, and Osteoporosis. There is even research being done about how cutting Dairy and meat out and adopting a Whole Foods diet can actually reverse the effect of disease in the body. In case you were zoning out during all the nutrition talk, I'm going to re-emphasize that last point. CUTTING OUT DAIRY CAN REDUCE THE EFFECT OF DISEASE.  Dairy is a silent killer, and a lot of people don't know how bad it really is. With Dairy, you're stuck with a lose lose situation. Higher fat Dairy has more saturated fat and will clog your arteries. Lower fat Dairy has more ability to stimulate cancer growth. That's right, I said STIMULATE CANCER GROWTH. I don't want to use this blog as a means to convert people to my lifestyle, but promise me something... do some research. I highly encourage everyone to see the movie Forks over Knives when it comes our in March. I was lucky enough to see an early screening, and I can honestly say it is an incredible movie. It is a well made narrative of American's diets, and how what we're eating is making us sick. Also, everyone should read Skinny Bitch. Don't let the name fool you, these ladies are serious about being healthy, and kicking ass. In fact, Kim and Rory would fit right in with us. Read their books, and begin to see the dark underbelly of food in America. Read other books such as In Defense of Food, and An Omnivore's Dilemma. Check out vegetariantimes.com and veganmeans.com. Get all the information before you write anything off as not applying to you. 


To make this political, I will note that the reason Dairy is promoted as healthy is because the Dairy Industry wants to make money. This makes sense, but the sick part is that the government refuses to say anything contrary because they are sleeping with the Dairy Industry. The USDA and FDA are corrupt beyond belief. So ladies, before you chow down on pizza or some mac and cheese, consider that poison you're putting into your bodies. Also consider that smart, liberal ladies are not the most common finding in many places around our country. Take care of your bodies so you can live long healthy lives, and so you can have enough strength to refute republican lunacy. 


Feel free to comment and share your thoughts on nutrition. 


Happy Learning and Eating 

Remember Remember...

Remember remember the 5th of November, gunpowder treason and plot. There be no reason why gunpowder treason should ever be forgot


If many of you (who do not live in the UK) do not know, today is Guy Fawkes Day. This poem is recited by little children on the 5th of November in the UK. More likely if you know this phrase, you heard it in the first voice over of V for Vendetta (great movie, a must see).

But anyways, today is Guy Fawkes day, which celebrate Mr. Fawkes' attempt to blow up Parliament, and the raining Protestant government (even though he failed). But his attempt is still celebrated the day with bonfires and treacle toffee (made it once, and it was delicious). But I guess to me, the Holiday is about rebelling against corrupt authority. It also exemplifies that fact that the ideas of one man can have a great effect (or almost effect).

I think is was very appropriate for this holiday to fall so close to the election this year... because from the results of the election, I think that many people are trying to go Guy Fawkes on the government, and "take back" this supposedly corrupt authority (and by people I mean white male conservatives).

Now even though I love the through of heroically destroying a corrupt aristocracy... the keyword is CORRUPT. People became scared and wanted to have a drastic change in the government, because they did not think the authority running the government was doing a good job. Well I call this pure IGNORANCE and MISINFORMATION. Now I am still angry with the fact that while the Democrats and a majority / SUPER majority, they accomplished little to nothing of substance. And when they did accomplish something... (eh em... getting the country out of a recession, implementing healthcare, tax cuts, etc...) it seemed as though nobody in the country knew what was happening. The government should make the public aware of the good they did. And now guess what. We have a Republican house.

And I would like to Congratulate President Obama on all of the work he did in the past two years (even though it seems nobody knows about that either). And AMERICA, yesss I'm talking to you, I am very disappointed in the outcomes of the election. Lets put our reasonable hats back on our heads, and stop running scared because the government did not somehow get unemployment down to  negative 4%. They did a lot of good, but it seems as though most of America, and I mean VOTING America, decided that this Government was not working for them.

And another note, come on YOUNG PEOPLE AND MINORITIES. WE ARE THE KEY TO WINNING ELECTIONS if you were not aware. Lets get our numbers up at the polls next time.

But anyways, happy 5th of November, and I will leave you with some words from V (the protagonist of the movie)

"In view, a humble vaudevillian veteran, cast vicariously as both victim and villian by the vicissitudes of Fate. This visage, no mere veneer of vanity, is a vestige of the vox populi, now vacant, vanished. However, this valorous visitation of a by-gone vexation, stands vivified and has vowed to vanquish these venal and virulent vermin van guarding vice and vouchsafing the violently vicious and voracious violation of volition The only verdict is vengence; a vendetta, held as a votive, not in vain, for the value and veracity of such shall one day vindicate the vigilant and the virtuous. Verily, this vichyssoise of verbiage veers most verbose, so let me simply add that it is my very good honor to meet you and you may call me V"

America's Fascination with Anti- Intellectualism

Ladies, there is something out there plaguing the minds of many of our fellow Americans. Anti-intellectualism is creeping into society and gaining followers left and right... but mostly right. What I can't understand is why anyone would place value on being uneducated...


For some reason, in our society, being anti-intellectual is seen as a good thing. Instead of placing value on higher education, people who have little to no idea what they are talking about are given many people’s full attention and their statements are valued.  President Bush, for example, was admired because he thought not with his head, but with his gut. He could condense problems into simple solutions, America was good and terrorists were bad. These ideas were respected and supported by many other anti-intellectual, anti-elite people. This idea of anti-intellectualism is not new in America; there have always been a group of people who disliked the elite and intellectuals. These people were generally Protestants, populists, and practical businessmen. Not surprisingly, this remains a strong basis for the Republican Party today.


Today, the leaders of this anti-intellectual movement can only be Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. Sarah Palin is famous for her knack for misspeaking and coming off as an uneducated radically conservative woman who loves giving her opinions on issues she knows nothing about. Instead of apologizing for her frequent false statements, Palin instead celebrates her ignorance and refers to herself as a regular person against the elites in government. Her lack of education about politics has turned into her greatest asset and the basis of her platform. Palin could be seen as the head of the Tea Party movement, which is the basis of the conservative movement right now. After tuesday, we see how powerful this movement is becoming. I'm not going to comment on Palin's own education, or the educational choices her children made. All I'm going to say, is the information is not hard to find...


Glenn Beck certainly represents the center of the conservative media movement. Beck has a large number of followers, many who met with him in Washington in August for his “Restoring Honor” rally. Beck is well known for his conspiracy theories and coming up with radical accusations and explanations for problems with the country and its socialist president. Beck has a strong desire to share his outlandish and mega-conservative ideas with the world, which is what inspired him to create Beck University. This is an online course that fans pay to watch Beck approved speeches that talk about evil government and progressives. Of course Beck is a crazy person, and not all Republicans think the same way he does. We should keep in mind however, he has a show on Fox news, which we all know is FAIR AND BALANCED. I mean really, who could ever call Fox anything besides bipartisan, straight-fact news? All sarcasm aside, millions of people watch Glenn Beck, and he is celebrated for his bogus theories, and strong anti-intellectual views. 


In America today, as a whole, it can be argued that we are smarter than we’ve ever been.  More than three times as many Americans had a bachelor’s degree or higher in 2008 as compared to 1960. We view nerds as heroes, which can be seen through people’s admiration for people like Bill Gates and Steve Jobs. Despite these developments, it seems our politics are still being ruled by the uneducated. Anti-intellectuals still value feelings and morality over education. Creationism is still being discussed as a possibility for the curriculum in schools. How is it possible that these people are getting a second look from anyone, let alone a strong base of followers? America needs to readjust its admiration of nerds to encompass the people making their law and policies. What possible explanation could there be for not wanting the people who lead the country to be educated?  These people should be the most educated and well-informed people in the country. Regardless of whether they decide to use anti-elitism as a way to attract supporters, they better know what they are talking about. 


I don't think anyone could help support my argument that Glenn Beck himself. This quote needs no introduction, it is anti-intellectualism in its purist form, and it's scary... 


"There are a lot of universities that are as dangerous with the indoctrination of the children as the terrorists are in Iraq or North Korea... We have been setting up reeducation camps. We call them universities."


So yeah... steer clear of Fox... and GO TO COLLEGE! 

Post-election Musings

Hello fellow liberal ladies (and I guess gentleman too if you're reading)! I could not think of a day more fitting to start this political blog, or to discuss restoring reason than November 3rd aka the day after election day. 


Well, Midterm Elections 2010 were exciting, to say the least. America successfully avoided electing a witch, but the actual people elected aren't necessarily an improvement. 


In Florida, clearly people have been drinking a little too much tea. The Senator elect, Marco Rubio, is pretty scary considering his conservative statements during the primaries. He strongly opposed abortion, stem-cell research, gay rights, and the President in general. He poses an especially big problem, because it has been said that he has his eye on the White House. The last thing we need is a socially backward charmer from humble beginnings making a play for the presidency in 6 to 10 years. In addition, the Governor elect in Florida, Rick Scott's company was fined for Medicare fraud in the past. When confronted, Scott claimed he didn't know about it. The CEO didn't know about massive Medicare fraud? Likely story...Who would trust a known corrupt criminal with their state? WHAT WERE PEOPLE THINKING? 


Rand Paul (you know, Ron Paul's son) was elected to the Senate yesterday in Kentucky. To give you a little insight into the complex libertarian slash conservative nature of Rand, this is what he thinks of Medicare:  "The fundamental reason why Medicare is failing is why the Soviet Union failed -- socialism doesn't work." What a gem... nice work Kentucky. WHAT WERE PEOPLE THINKING? 


Another stupendous choice was Jim DeMint, the Senate Elect from South Carolina. You remember Jim DeMint, Mister American values. DeMint spoke out against gays in every way possible. They shouldn't adopt children, get married, or even teach school! This ultra conservative tea bagger made sure to tell his fellow crazies that were elected that they better stay true to their Tea Party ideals, and not sell out in Washington and compromise with those loose moral Republicans. I mean seriously... WHAT WERE PEOPLE THINKING? 


I would like to commend those of you who made the right choice, and voted for a qualified candidate yesterday, and by which I can only mean a Democrat. Some people recognized the need to look past the allure of fancy costumes, outlandish signs, and the pleasant aroma of tea, and make good decisions. I would especially like to recognize those California voters who kept Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman out of office. These results almost make the map look a little less RED. 


Restoring reason in this country is crucial at this time, and we need to bind together as rational, educated liberal ladies (and gentleman?) and stand up for what is best for America. Certainly electing right wing extremists is not the right path. I'm not advocating that we elect extremist liberals either. All I'm asking is that we discuss what is the best choice and make compromises to get things done. Enough filibusters. Enough delaying legislation. Enough refusing to discuss bills so that what passes doesn't reflect what anyone really wants. Enough calling our president a Kenyan, Muslim terrorist. Enough is enough. Let's move toward reason and sanity and make compromises like we have in this country for over 200 years. Let's be American for crying out loud!