Encouraging signs!
We're all so frantic and angry and flying all over the place doing this and that, but there have been encouraging signs!
by Dave Winer Tuesday, February 7, 2017

People are flying through things. 

So much is being written and people are getting alarmed by this and that, but being frantic isn't going to help. 

When I find myself freaking out, and it happens a lot, I step away from the keyboard and try to refind a perspective in a bigger world.

Outside, things are actually normal. The buses and taxis and Ubers are all on the streets. People are walking, riding the subway, doing what they usually do.

So far the shit hasn't actually hit any fans. 

The press and the president are doing a good job of keeping us whipped up. Congress is trying to sneak some nasty shit by us, but we're hearing about it. Or so it seems. 

But the things we're worried about mostly have yet to happen.

And meanwhile there have been encouraging signs. Don't overlook those.

  1. The courts stopped the ban and the executive branch seems to be respecting the court. The president doesn't like it, but he hasn't convinced anyone around him to break the law, at least not yet.
  2. There was a fantastic Super Bowl. What a game. And even better, the ads all told kind of an amazing story. The people who decide these things at the big companies that advertise want all of us to know they see all of us. Immigrants, women, POCs, Muslims. So many very positive messages. Not one of them disturbing. Quite the opposite. And wasn't Lady Gaga great?
  3. The world is standing up to Trump. Did you see the cover of Spiegel! Wow. Mexico and Iran aren't taking his shit. Good for them. And our European allies are preparing to stand up for themselves. 
  4. Nancy Pelosi said hold on, what's up with Trump and Russia. Now we need to know. She said that. The press gave her some shit about it, they shouldn't have (these are important questions) but she stood her ground. Thank you Rep Pelosi. 
  5. Even Fox gave him grief about how we're as bad as Putin. Well that's some bullshit. And I'm glad Fox knows it. They're not completely out of their minds. :balloon:
  6. Saturday Night Live.
  7. There's a snow storm coming to NYC, and it's been raining on the west coast. The drought there has eased, if not ended? No earthquakes. That's good too. 
  8. Most important, every one of us understands now how important it is to vote. So even though the Repubs are inventing new ways of cheating, more of us are going to show up to vote, so there's hope.
  9. The US is still the US. Things could get bad, but they haven't changed much yet.

Let's all stay friends and try to stay positive, and this is a great country, with long traditions of free speech and tolerance and the rule of law and separation of powers and respect for the individual, and those things don't change overnight. Really, they don't. We still are who we were. 

PS: I still think the patron saint of the revolution should be one of the two kings. Rodney or Martin Luther