We have to stop letting the liars frame every single conversation, & we need to call out the lazy mainstream media when it adopts the terms & false framing. For example: it’s not a “tax burden,” it’s an equitable contribution toward a functional society. Besides roads, fire departments, & schools, the fact that our trash is collected regularly keeping our streets from being overrun by rats & other wildlife is worth paying for. Example 2: we don’t have “open borders,” no party wants or is calling for anything of the kind, & anyone who uses that phrase is knowingly trying to deceive you. Some of us accept the reality that most Americans family trees sprouted abroad, we are mostly immigrants & children of immigrants, & we insist on respect for immigration & immigrants…not “open borders.” Example 3: the now-ubiquitous Trumpy phrase “radical left.” If you hear anyone using the phrase (not sarcastically) in reference to a Democrat I urge you to laugh at the speaker, because U.S. politics barely include the “left,” much less anything resembling “radical” on that end of the spectrum. This is how fascists re-frame reality, sometimes with the help of “alternative facts” (aka lies), to make the ever more extreme & out-of-touch GOP seem less radical. Think about it this way: the GOP has grown so extreme that all 4 of the pre-Pussy Grabber Republican presidents — dating back over 40 years — would be kicked out of today’s GOP as apostates. Now that is radical.

TL;DR - the right speaking in terms of extremism & radicalism is pure projection.

A more personal aspect of this radicalism is that somehow 50 years after it became settled law, Americans’ privacy rights are on the ballot. This includes the right for consenting adults to have sex as you chose in the privacy of their own homes; the right to use contraception; the right to marry the person you love regardless of their race or color or religion. Of course the specific right in the crosshairs of the current assault is choice. Health of the mother, life of the mother, situations of rape & incest — these are all excellent reasons to be in favor of safe, legal, accessible abortion, as most Americans are. But those reasons are distractions beside the central point: this decision belongs to the pregnant person. Period. No one else. End of discussion. The rest is after-the-fact window dressing designed to soften the extremist point of view at the center of this — that a U.S. citizen can’t decide for herself whether or not to be an incubator for 9 months regardless of her ability or desire to take on such a great responsibility. Even most Republicans agree about the right to choose (hell, even deep red Kansas shot down this insanity), yet here we are staring down the very real threat of federal legislation banning abortion & the illegitimate, lying Supreme Court supermajority to uphold it.

Finally, anti-semitism is on the rise in the U.S. For the last decade of his life my father was concerned about the rise of antisemitism in Europe & I tried to assuage his fears with “it can’t happen here” platitudes. I was wrong. When anti-semitic hate is amplified by demagogues with massive reach as it was recently by The Orange Menace & Shit Can Ye West, that fans the flames. Hate becomes empowered, normalized. Both of these idiots have been embraced by Nazis & Nat-Cs significantly raising the stakes of this battle.

It is crucial that the reality-based community win the midterm elections & the wins must be massive because the election-deniers are going to challenge every last loss. Also, intimidation at the polls is going to be worse than ever before with counties already reporting a lack of poll-workers due to the threats of violent, anti-democratic Trumpists. Like Benedict Orange these challenges will be presented free of evidence & that will not bother the cult because…well, they haven’t seemed to care about facts for some time now. They will insist they were cheated. The larger the margin the more farcical & easily dismissed these claims will be. Please vote, & impress upon your circle of influence just why it’s so important that they do, too.

Thank you.

Today during our marathon live-hosted 480 Minutes program which runs from 9am-5pm Eastern U.S. time we will debut tons of new music including songs by The Bellwether Syndicate (Chicago, IL, @BellwetherSyn), Dry Cleaning (London, England, @DryCleaning), Enumclaw (Tacoma, WA, @Enumclaw_Online), Holy Ship (Stockholm, Sweden, @HolyShipBand), Metric (Toronto, Ontario, Canada, @Metric), The Orielles (Halifax, West Yorkshire, UK, @TheOrielles), PEPE/PAPA (Budapest, Hungary), Sloan (Toronto, Ontario, Canada, @SloanMusic), Sparta (El Paso, TX, @SpartaTheBand), Sports Team (London, England, @SportsTeam_), Staffers (Washington DC via Omaha, NE, @ ), & Surf Curse (Reno, NV, @Nrattiganz).

Tune in & meet fellow members of our listening community in the chat room during the live-hosted show.

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*Things to do as the midterm elections approach:

• Write letters: https://votefwd.org/campaigns (mail by October 29th)

• Write postcards: https://www.activateamerica.vote/postcards (mail by October 25th)

• Enter your target state or race and find ways to donate/volunteer: https://swingleft.org/

• Phone bank, text, canvas: https://www.mobilize.us/

• Bring the volunteering party to the critical, final weekend -- Nov. 5-8: https://thelastweekend.org/

480 Minutes / 2022 Episode 40/Overall Episode 807