Scott Boehmer

Category: Politics

  • Thanksgiving and the Civil War

    In 1841 a book that reprinted the early diaries and letters from the Plymouth colony recovered the story of that three-day celebration in which ninety Indigenous Americans and the English settlers shared fowl and deer. This story of peace and goodwill among men who by the 1840s were more often enemies than not inspired Sarah Josepha Hale, who edited the popular women’s magazine Godey’s Lady’s Book, to think that a national celebration could ease similar tensions building between the slave-holding South and the free North. She lobbied for legislation to establish a day of national thanksgiving.

    And then, on April 12, 1861, southern soldiers fired on Fort Sumter, a federal fort in Charleston Harbor, and the meaning of a holiday for giving thanks changed.

    Heather Cox Richardson

    November 27, 2024 (Letters from an American)

  • The Cryptocurrency Industry’s Unprecedented Election Spending

    The cryptocurrency industry spent almost $200 million to influence the outcomes of the 2024 United States elections. This unprecedented degree of corporate spending from a relatively small industry had a major effect — but probably not in the way you think.

    Let’s talk about where the money came from, where it went, what the cryptocurrency industry’s goals are in politics, and what to do now.

    Molly White

  • Army Talk: Fascism!

    Citizenship in a democracy is more than a ballot dropped in a box on Election Day. It’s a 365-days-a-year job requiring the active participation and best judgement of every citizen in the affairs of his community, his nation, and his country’s relations with the world.

    Fascism thrives on indifference and ignorance. It makes headway when people are apathetic or cynical about their government – when they think of it as something far removed from them and beyond their personal concern. The erection of a traffic light on your block is important to your safety and the safety of your children. The erection of a world organization to safeguard peace and world security is just as important to our personal security. Both must be the concern of every citizen.

    Freedom, like peace and security, cannot be maintained in isolation. It involves being alert and on guard against the infringement not only of our own freedom but the freedom of every American. If we permit discrimination, prejudice, or hate to rob anyone of his democratic rights, our own freedom and all democracy is threatened.

    Army Talk Orientation Fact Sheet #64

    October 26, 2024 (Letters from an American)

    Army Talk: Fascism! (Internet Archive)

  • Rules of Engagement

    1) When somebody hurts you, tell them. When somebody steps on your toes, let them know that they stepped on your toes. See how they react. They’ll tell you who they are.

    2) When somebody seems too unsafe to trust with your pain, set a boundary. If somebody has proved themselves less safe than you thought, but you still think it’s safe to do so, tell them that you’re going to have to withdraw in some way from them. See how they react. They’ll tell you who they are.

    3) When somebody seems too unsafe to trust with your boundaries, leave. If it’s not safe to tell them, or you’re not sure if it’s safe, withdraw from them without telling them. See how they react. They’ll tell you who they are.

    A. R. Moxon

    Rules of Engagement (The Reframe)

  • Lost in the Future

    Modern existence has become engulfed in sludge, the institutions that exist to cut through it bouncing between the ignorance of their masters and a misplaced duty in objectivity, our mechanisms for exploring and enjoying the world interfered with by powerful forces that are too-often left unchecked. Opening our devices is willfully subjecting us to attack after attack from applications, websites and devices that are built to make us do things rather than operate with the dignity and freedom that much of the internet was founded upon.

    Ed Zitron

    Lost In The Future (Where’s Your Ed At)

  • Three big answers (about NC elections)

    What direction is North Carolina headed in?

    The answer: still unclear.

    Carolina Forward Research Staff

    Together, Robinson and Morrow may have publicly established the floor of support that Republican statewide candidates can expect in North Carolina, no matter what. If anything, this speaks even more clearly to how deep political polarization has sunk in.

    Carolina Forward Research Staff

    Though Democrats won a majority of votes for the State Senate (50.1%) and State House (51.1%), Republicans nevertheless held on to their supermajority in the former, and are just 1 seat from a supermajority in the latter.

    Carolina Forward Research Staff

    Three big answers (Carolina Forward)

  • Wind the clock

    What you don’t do is give up. The outcome of this election has exposed to many the realities we didn’t want to see, of just how many people around us openly embrace hatred and bigotry and authoritarianism. Standing up to that can be scary and even dangerous, but it is also right. Beliefs are the things you stand for even when it’s scary, even when it’s hard, even when there might be consequences. And the less danger you, personally, face for standing up for what you believe, the more obligated you are to do it.

    Molly White

    Wind the clock (Citation Needed)

  • American Reality

    The shining possibility of an America living up to its ideals feels washed away by the dark reality of the America that is.