371 Comments
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Andy Borowitz's avatar

Share your protest stories! I want to hear them.

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Audrey Kadis's avatar

I tried posting this twice and it didn't make it past your filter. I'm 77, 5'2" and weigh 105. I've attended protests since I was 19 during the Vietnam War, facing armed troops and tear gas. I'm still at it and attend anti-Trump protests every other week, email my Republican Senators and write 100 postcards each month to encourage Democratic voters in swing states to VOTE. I had a long conversation with a museum guard this past weekend who said he had given up on voting. At the end he said that he heard me and would vote in 2026 to protect his grandchildren. My life won't change because of Trump but I fear for my children and grandchildren. We need more little, old ladies to stand up for future generations.

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Octavia Redwood's avatar

Thank you for your efforts and for being a role model.

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Empennage's avatar

As the man eloquently stated, you are "The Hero We Need Now". I see your cape dauntlessly flapping in the breeze of activism. Thank you

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Catherine Bridge's avatar

The protesting now makes it feel like the anti-Vietnam War protests of the 60s again. Thank you for your efforts.

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Pat Goudey OBrien's avatar

They took time to bear fruit, but they were important, those protests. They were very, very important. Important now, too, to show our solidarity. Let’s keep the faith that we can take our country back from the atavistic fascists who dream of remaking the Gilded Age of McKinley. Hell, NO! We won’t go … not backwards!

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David Kempner's avatar

I am 76 with a daughter and two granddaughters, and I fear for them but I do not think that people our age are safe either.

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Audrey Kadis's avatar

We may have issues, but our granddaughters may need an abortion, my grandson is focused on science which is being dismantled and they all will have to deal with the effects of climate change which is only getting worse.

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Sharon C Storm's avatar

I’m 85 and attend a protest every Friday. I can’t go if the weather is too cold (last week it was below freezing), but if it gets up to 40, I’ll be there. I live in a small town, and ICE was spotted in the next town over about a month ago. I don’t think they will come here. Everyone in this area is a citizen.

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Audrey Kadis's avatar

Bravo! I hope I can continue to protest when I'm 85.

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Karin Ketterson Robinson's avatar

Standing there with you, Audrey!

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Wis's avatar

We do!!! You, Patricia and all feisty elder ladies standing up to the so-called “Man” are my heroines!

I’m pretty feisty and I’m 57, so I qualify that way but I’m not heroic. I’ve not encountered any ICE here in Ft Collins, CO, but I protest, write postcards and letters, donate and sign petitions… but this is all just typical stuff. I want to do MOREMOREMORE! You and your kindred spirit sisters are an inspiration! Thank you!

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Barbb's avatar

I am your age, same height, and, shall we say "zoftig?" For the past two years, I have been plagued by a number of medical issues. That being said, I also was very involved in the civil rights movement and anti-Vietnam protests of the 1960s. The country we live in is like rotten vegetables in the fridge, compared with where we thought our country was heading in those days. I have two daughters who are involved, kind, and level-headed. Sort of like pacifists, I guess. So, Audrey, here I am to let you know you are not alone. There are more of us than you might think. We are passing the baton to our daughters and granddaughters for the future. We may be called feisty old ladies, but back then we were feisty young women. "Feisty" is the operative term here. So, I leave you with these words of solidarity: "Keep on keepin' on, and right on, sister love!"

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Audrey Kadis's avatar

I think feisty is a compliment! I know there are other women our age protesting because I see them at the protests. I am pleased with the comments and have no intention of slowing down. We have my daughter and her family for dinner 3 nights a week. We go around the table and each person has to describe a joy and an oy from the day. Our default oy, if you can't think of something, is "Donald Trump is still President." My 11 year-old grandson started this.

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It's Come To This's avatar

A couple of years ago, someone posted a pic of three Proudboy types posing with their ginormous self-defense “muskets” with the weapons removed and replaced by three ginormous dildos painted yellow, indigo, lavender, salmon bisque and other rainbow flag colors. Wish I still could find it!

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Lady Emsworth's avatar

I just Googled "Militia with dildos" - and there y'go, your wish is my command:

https://x.com/DjLaurieB/status/1258268401648222208

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Jon Deak's avatar

Thanks, Lady E !! It is hilarious - as darkly hilarious as T***p fixing the economy: "Just don't buy 37 pencils or 37 dolls. ." - !!? Isn't this a Captain Queeg moment (Humphrey Bogart counting Strawberries in 'the Caine Mutiny!)

Gotta laugh at these guys - except they be ruinin' our Country!

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Dr. Judith Schlesinger's avatar

The Caine Mutiny was one of Bogie's best! (I wrote a book about his life story and movies in 1997 - out of print now, oh well.). Anyway, did you know that all that business about Captain Queeg handling those marbles in his palm when he got stressed - more and more crazily as the movie went on- was totally Bogie's contribution? He was a very bright man, even if he couldn't graduate from high school... (Yes, this has nothing to do with the horrors in the news. Sometimes I just need a BREAK!!! ;-(

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Empennage's avatar

So, I opened the twitter image and spit out my milk...literally. Heads up people! (omg, I'm making it worse...).

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Lady Emsworth's avatar

Uh - wouldn't that be "Heads down. . .?

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Empennage's avatar

Ruh Roh

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Kathy Lee Davis's avatar

Looks like a great family Christmas card!

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Lady Emsworth's avatar

"It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Everywhere you go.

The militia's gathered here, grinning from ear to ear,

With bucket of lube and dildos all aglow!"

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Sandra Nicht's avatar

Randy Rainbow has HIS version: "It's beginning to look a lot like F*CK this"...

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Gjay15's avatar

Mr. Rainbow is a prince

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J Cheng's avatar

we also need a pic of Kristi as a gnome with a christmas hat to complete the picture.

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Beth B's avatar

as the Grinchette

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Gjay15's avatar

Several “Republican “ politicians have already done it

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It's Come To This's avatar

Thank yew!

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Susan Barnes's avatar

I refuse to have an X account, so I’ll take your word for it.

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Sharon C Storm's avatar

I don’t have an X account, but it opened for me. It’s hysterical! 😂

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Angie Longenecker's avatar

Me too!

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Frau Katze's avatar

You don’t need an account to view it.

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Jeff Lazar's avatar

The legend to that photo could be, "Viagra? We don't need no stinkin' Viagra."

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Jon Deak's avatar

Ha!!

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modj's avatar

they look more like appropriately sized middle fingers to me...

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Judy Sherwood's avatar

oh dear me, that is HILARIOUS... I haven't stopped laughing... big laughs... how fitting for those dildos... er... guys....

Thank you!

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Gjay15's avatar

Heh bless you

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Ginger's avatar

OMG laughing out loud

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Cheryl Steiger's avatar

I did, too!

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J Reed's avatar

The only ones they have hahaha

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Gjay15's avatar

Please Please search more diligently ( I have deliberately avoided the use of other adverbs to describe this search)

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Lady Emsworth's avatar

???

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Empennage's avatar

Best 2 lines of your essay: "...If I were a potential ICE recruit eager to pursue a rewarding career as a masked goon, I think I could have maneuvered around her. If not, I’m probably not ICE material..." as it speaks volumes of the absurdity.

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Daniel Bennett's avatar

But how were they to know for sure that she is not an Antifa leader?

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John Gregory's avatar

she might be the one who knows the secret location of its national headquarters where they keep the membership list...

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Daniel Bennett's avatar

When they find the HQ and start arresting Antifa members will they have to release

some of the Salvadoran grandmas to make room for all the Antifa members in the new for-profit prison system?

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Linda Miller's avatar

Maybe she can release the Epstein files!

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Beth B's avatar

You can tell that $oros shared some of his million$ to buy her wardrobe.

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Frau Katze's avatar

She certainly looks awfully dangerous.

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Kim D's avatar

I have a big sign in my front window that reads "RESIST FASCISM" with an American flag pasted beneath that. I live right on the cable car line in San Francisco so it gets a lot of attention. Occasionally I hear people cheering it as they go by. Also, I try to join the protesters in front of the SF Immigration Court once a week -- which, btw, is extremely peaceful... just in case they try to tell you otherwise. The sign I carry there reads "ICE IS HUMAN TRAFFICKING."

At first the protesting here in SF (No Kings, etc.) was mostly populated by the older Viet Nam-era crowd (like myself). But with every new protest, including in front of the courthouse, I'm seeing the crowd increasingly include a whole lotta younger people. It's about 50/50 now. Very encouraging! I feel like the energy of the younger generation is what will win the day. C'mon kids! Get out there and fight for your rights!

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Lady Emsworth's avatar

Try this - might get them up!

https://youtu.be/IhQEBAl3Gpk?si=zzYusANRZtR7-IjS

The Magnificent Mr. Marley.

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modj's avatar

Love this so much ~ Blessed be Bob ~ Thank you!

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Sarah McAuliffe-Bellin's avatar

I just shared it and will share more in a bit. Patricia has the balls that the GOP had surgically removed when trump took over. Way to go sister!

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Jeanney Kutner's avatar

In a world of Kristi’s, be Patricia

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Kari Converse's avatar

Beautiful! Your response brought tears to my eyes. And way to go, Patricia! "Never doubt that one person can make a difference..."

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BYRON's avatar

right. on!

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Susie's avatar

Well said!!!!

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Paul A Hanrahan's avatar

I’m so glad those ICE agents are willing to risk life and limb against these radical leftist old ladies! It makes me really proud to know my tax dollars are being used this way. 😡😡😡

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Beth B's avatar

She was at property paid for by our tax dollars.

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Pam Birkenfeld's avatar

I too saw Patricia‘s post in the comments and watched the video. But Andy did something about it, very important!

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Andy Borowitz's avatar

I'm a comedian--this isn't even my job! But somebody has to do it.

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Prima Sarcastica's avatar

The comedians are the ones who are telling the truth and keeping us sane! Thanks for what you do!

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Stephen Webb's avatar

Remember that the 'court jester' or 'fool' was the only one in a king's court permitted to tell truth to power with little or no retaliation. I love this story; don't like the media much, but of course, they're paid by the corporate types who live by the commercial ratings

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Anathema Addams's avatar

Comedians are the foot soldiers in this war for our sanity. Autocrats are notoriously thin skinned - they can handle anything except ridicule. So bring it on. It annoys them and makes the rest of us smile.

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Pradnya Sikand's avatar

Andy , I respectfully beg to differ ! It is your job as our finest satirist to show us the absurdities and injustices of our age ! Keep up the excellent work 😉

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Sharon C Storm's avatar

Without comedians, we would never get through this crap and still remain sane. You are the mocking voice we need to be able to handle this evil.

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Patty Bohart's avatar

This looks like my experience as a volunteer at Planned Parenthood.

I escort women seeking safe healthcare into the clinic.

The crazy priests and brainwashed old ladies with crucifixes follow the patients around, sing hymns, tell them they are going to hell, etc. and nothing comes of it. We call the police and the police do NOTHING to protect the tearful, frightened women!

Send the ICE goons on the radical evangelicals who terrorize healthcare patients NOT 75 year old grandparents!!!!!

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Mary Gilbert's avatar

I’m a clinic escort at Planned Parenthood as well. We’re instructed never to ‘engage’ with protestors but I would love to ask them this: “if you believe so strongly in life, why do you support politicians who vote against nutritional, healthcare and educational support for children?”.

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Elizabeth Block's avatar

And who support capital punishment.

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Patty Bohart's avatar

Absolutely!

Thank you for being an advocate!!!

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Donna S Swarr's avatar

I like your idea, BUT they think ICE are the good guys.

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Octavia Redwood's avatar

keeping painted blue lines safe from little grandmas everywhere.

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Patty Bohart's avatar

Ugh!

Yes, you are right!

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Gjay15's avatar

I read a report by someone who also accompanied women seeking services at a planned parenthood center. This person said that there were several women seeking abortions who she had seen before out protesting against abortion and blocking other women from these centers. I don’t know if this is a true story of “ sin for you but not for me”

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Patty Bohart's avatar

Absolutely this is true.

We have patients who say, "my abortion doesn't count because I am not like THOSE people."

The hypocrisy is staggering!

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Octavia Redwood's avatar

years ago worked at a clinic which provided abortions. I kept the statistics-50% of patients were Catholic. One day a very young couple came in-they were concerned because that evening they were attending a CYO dance and wanted to make sure she'd be ok to stand and greet well-wishers.

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Gjay15's avatar

Thank you for providing some substantiation

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Tamas Jilling's avatar

How is it even legal in any way to have masked, often unidentified agents doing this to anyone, let alone an elderly woman? I was growing up in the post-Stalinist eastern block and this would have seemed unlikely to happen even there. When there were goons enforcing some state agenda, at least they were not cowardly enough to hide their faces.

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gayle carper's avatar

PLEASE don't call us elderly at 75. In our heads we all think we are in our 20's and protesting Vietnam.

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Audrey Kadis's avatar

I'm 77. and and like you I've been protesting since Vietnam. I protest for my children and grandchild and won't give up until I can no longer do it.

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Mark Lip's avatar

Amen to that. At age 74 I'm not even old enough to be on Facebook.

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gayle carper's avatar

Oh yes you are! Andy Borowitz is on FB!

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Mark Lip's avatar

On our/my behalf. Thanks for pointing that out. Communication is Andy's realm, not mine; a realm in which he rules supreme.

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Mary Gilbert's avatar

It’s all good 😊

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J Cheng's avatar

so true! Our hearts and mentality don't age (except like fine wine), but our bodies unfortunately have no choice but to betray us.

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Tamas Jilling's avatar

Haha, I am not that far off from 75 myself and concur in spirit. Technically though........

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Mary E's avatar

TJ, I wholeheartedly concur, how is this even legal?

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Stephen Webb's avatar

'Legal' seems not to apply to the donnie demons.

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J Reed's avatar

It’s not. If it was, they wouldn’t have released her.

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Bill Keyes's avatar

She got into "GOOD TROUBLE" Just like protesters of another era.

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Annette's avatar

yes . . . We need lots more Good Trouble!!!

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Golden Rule's avatar

Ha! I'm wearing my Good Trouble shirt today. I'm 75 & I don't a solo protest on most Mondays in my small town of East Jordan, MI.

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Linda Mitchell, KCMO's avatar

Patricia, I have always felt that when the thugs and despicables decide that they want to mess with us post-menopausal women, they are being very, very unwise. I'm immunocompromised so I don't go out in public to do this, but my form of protest is sending extremely nasty and fact-based emails to the two deplorables who serve as Missouri's senators, especially to Eric Sch[m]itt (the M is silent), as well as equally nasty voicemails and FB comments. A lot of people really don't understand that we don't give a shit about the optics: we are angry and we don't care who knows it.

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Donna S Swarr's avatar

Totally agree. At 70+, so what if you get arrested? You don't have to put it on a job application.... At 75 do they do a background check to get into assisted care? lol.

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Mark Lip's avatar

So true. At a certain point in life we are freer to speak our minds than ever before.

While in a crowd in college many of us felt the same way, but once out on our own that changed, especially after the kids were shot/murdered at Kent State, an event in which I believe Nixon had a hand. Would someone please review the White House tapes leading up to and following that awful event?

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Mary Gilbert's avatar

I’m with you Linda as those two a-holes are my senators as well. I send letters nearly weekly to tell them they are on the wrong side of history and that we will never let them forget that. It’s likely useless, but I implore them to have the courage to stand up against the orange menace.

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Sean M Carlin's avatar

How do you not identify with somebody her age longing to see the USA that she came to love and believe in? Patricia for President!

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Susan Cooper's avatar

I am 83 and I do long for the USA that I lived in for most of my life. It's heartbreaking.

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Meighan Corbett's avatar

I understand the longing for a past world, but that world wasn't very good for women, blacks, gays, Jews or Muslims. We want a better world.

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Mary E's avatar

Agreed, MC, yet I feel, perhaps naively so, that chances for ongoing improvement were better in the world SC longs for than today’s world. As a senior citizen female, I’m still irked that in the region where I grew up, girls at that time could not play Little League. The changes needed were/are slow to arrive but they did ooze in.

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Susan Cooper's avatar

Thank you, Mary.

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Susan Cooper's avatar

Well, of course we want a better world. I long for world peace.

However, I remember what the world was like when I was young. The world that I have lived in has made amazing progress during my lifetime. I can see that it is better for women, blacks, gays, and Jews. Not sure about Muslims.

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M G McBride's avatar

Exactly!! The American 1950s were great if you weren't a woman who was bored out of your mind and/or dominated by a bullying male while trying to raise children who had to struggle in that same world. Lots of energy went in to keeping secrets, I think.

And if you were a minority? Well, you don't have to think too hard to realize that reality was not rosy. (BTW: I do not say this out of personal bitterness. I was very lucky and had a very happy childhood.)

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Amy H's avatar

Hello? Society has some giant steps backwards in terms of securing human rights and creating conditions for peaceful coexistence, on every level. Most unsettling is the USA’s corrupt and dysfunctional role in promoting those values especially by this administration. Take off the rose colored glasses. Look under the rug and up at the top tiers of influence and tell me about the progress we are making in repairing the world.

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Frau Katze's avatar

Things got markedly worse in January (they weren’t perfect before but now they’re terrible),

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Mary Sue Palazzari's avatar

Me, too.

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Sean M Carlin's avatar

I did not suggest that things were perfect in the past. I do believe that prior to MAGA that there was progress. Beyond the Executive branch we have a Judicial branch that is trying to take us back to the 1950’s.

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Patricia Dempsey's avatar

Yay for Patricia. Another Patricia here and while in my early 20's I was raising my children and had no time for bra burning. Now at 78, I will join every protest with groups of patriotic people of all ages who are aghast at the outrageous behavior of the Trump administration and the goons under Khristie Noem. She is an abomination!

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Mary Greenwald's avatar

I took my daughter to the Vietnam protests in Michigan (Dow Headquarters) and my son to the Kentucky legislature to protest the WOMEN testifying AGAINST passage of the ERA. Now I take them and grandchildren to NO KINGS Protests. At 81 I am still angry and fighting injustice.

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Henry Cohen's avatar

She was standing on the sidewalk outside the building. She was not obstructing the entrance, and she could not have been, because no one was there who wished to enter. She could sue for false arrest if the laws still operated in this country.

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Nancy Kittle's avatar

Not to mention the fact that she is a US taxpayer and has every right to be on government property!

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Donna S Swarr's avatar

That is the rub, isn't it?

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Beth B's avatar

The entrance which had no entrants.

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Suzanne Fausser's avatar

What a wonderful story. I m 75 too and I wish I had been there with her. All my admiration and love to Patricia and to you for having published it.

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JOEL XAVIER's avatar

Keep ICE agents busy arresting us senior citizens. Part of Ghandi's passive resistance. Wear them down.

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Pam Birkenfeld's avatar

I like that!

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Ophioukhos's avatar

"Well Curley honey, how did your day at ICE go....." "Fantastic, Moe, Larry and I took down another dangerous fascist today, whoop, whoop, whoop!"

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Sally Joy Rubin's avatar

Wow! What a story! I love that Patricia just goes over there on her own and does a one-woman protest.

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Andy Borowitz's avatar

Every one of us can. Inspiring!

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Mary E's avatar

I wonder what those Noem-ites are like when they’re not sporting a uniform.

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Marianne Burbank's avatar

They all have tiny hands…very tiny hands, hair growing out of their nostrils, do not shower regularly or use deodorant, and never brush their teeth…and they sit in their mothers’ basements watching porn and resenting that no real life women want anything to do with them…That’s what they’re like…

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Linda Mitchell, KCMO's avatar

Marianne you forgot that they needed waivers for their physical fitness tests because they can't outrun a 72-year-old woman because, y'know, too many Big Macs and donuts . . .

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Mary E's avatar

MB, I made the mistake of continuing to sip my tea as I read your reply, I (almost) sprayed it in laughter.

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Beth B's avatar

That's an occupational hazard that comes with reading TBR.

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Wis's avatar

I picture little aliens with remote controls inside the shells of their bodies. Or musk-made robots with Tesla logos on their foreheads.

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