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Welcome to this Good News Roundup!
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Tuesday’s Intro by niftywriter: Only 1014 words
Good Day, Gnusies!
I hope you’re staying warm if you’re in the polar vortex zone like me and CG! 🥶🐩
Before I jump into today’s Good News Roundup, I’d like to write a few words about maintaining our equilibrium as this election year gathers steam.
This is going to be a consequential year in history — ours and the world’s. We all know that and so it is natural that this reality brings up both hope and fear. Something that seems to crop up with tiresome regularity is the unnecessary reminder from concerned posters who respond to our reporting of good news with comments along the lines of “don’t be complacent!” or “if you’re not terrified, you're not paying attention!” .
Listen, Gnusies, we can’t always avoid people who seem incapable of dealing with their own panic and fear and who seem compelled to spread it around. What we can do is manage our own fears sensibly. And how can we do that? I think we do it by acknowledging reality — the scary bits AND the hopeful bits — and reminding ourselves constantly that our primitive brains want to assign greater weight to the scary bits, even if they are not actually the more powerful events right now.
That primitive brain reaction is what causes the gloom and doomers to persist with their compulsion to tear down every optimistic moment with cries of “you’re too complacent!”. They are driven by unchecked fear — fear that stops them from recognizing the complete picture.
Nobody here is “complacent”. What we are is realistic optimists who recognize the dangers AND the truth that we have the power to overcome those dangers, with enough organizing and effort. The difference between realistic optimists and G&Ders is that we make ourselves interrupt the uncontrolled fear response of our primitive brains. We work hard to stop that unchecked reactivity, by making a conscious decision to get the full picture — via GNRs, other sources of good news and conversation with other Gnusies. That’s the first step to taking positive action.
And as for being ‘terrified’ by events, just no, absolutely not! I am heartily sick of that kind of fear-mongering — and the implication that anyone who isn’t quaking in their boots at MAGA and TFG and the rest of the reich wing fascists must be too stupid to understand the threat. I am a 62 year old grandmother and I’ve been through some things. I recognize the danger that TFG and his vicious supporters pose to our democracy, to vulnerable populations, to women and yes, to me personally as a liberal progressive. And I will be damned if I will cower in fear before them!
Perhaps these G&Ders think they’re using the apparently successful conservative playbook. How often have we heard that the Rs play on the ‘fears’ of their base? Or that fear is the great motivator? It’s a constant refrain and it is only partially correct. Fear is the spark, but the engine for change has been something else. Adam Serwer pointed to it when he wrote The Cruelty is the Point. MAGA is emboldened by anger and hatred. They are not cowering in fear at rallies or in diners, they are sneering and laughing at liberal tears and furiously seeking to cause more and more pain to people not like them.
Fear paralyzes. Anger propels action.
In my case, I am declining the hatred portion but hell yes I will use anger to propel me to keep fighting for a better world. The way MAGA enjoys hurting others makes me angry, not afraid. And when people on our own side chastise us for not being more ‘terrified’, my reaction is 🙄Oh, brother! with a touch of anger thrown in there for good measure. I don’t engage, I just redouble my efforts to fight fight fight for democracy, for equality, for women’s rights. I want to leave a better world for my grandchildren, and I am not going to wait for them to do the work for me! The young people are going to do great things, and I plan to do my part to mitigate some of the harm of the last 50 years as well.
Anyway, that’s how I feel about that and I encourage all the Gnus in Gnuville to consider declining fear and embracing healthy anger and action. When someone tells me we should be terrified, I say, “You go ahead and be terrified; I’m going to take action”, and then I write postcards, write GNRs, register people to vote, do what I can with my time and energy. I refuse to hand my power over to MAGA by letting them terrorize me. When people on our own side start urging us all to fall into a fear spiral, they are inadvertently handing themselves over to MAGA. Let’s not help MAGA hurt us.
Whenever you start to feel the fear spiral happening — because of the MSM’s relentless focus on the negative, or because other people keep running around with hair on fire, chastising you for being ‘complacent’ just because you choose to also acknowledge our reasons for hope — I encourage you to mentally put up a stop sign, take a moment to recalibrate and check out a positive news source to regain your balance. The scary stuff is real, but so is the strong hopeful stuff. Try to recognize when various sources are triggering your primitive brain and make sure to interrupt that cycle of fear.
Never forget these facts:
We are the majority.
Most people want a better world, and
We are organizing to make that happen.
One final note: while I urge you to try hard not to be dragged down into the spiral of fear when G&Ders spread their panic around (there’s no need to engage), I also encourage all of us to have compassion for them. We are all vulnerable to the cycle of fear because we are all human. It takes effort to force ourselves to pause so we can switch away from our strong primitive reactions and pay attention to our more recently evolved enlightened brains. None of us succeeds all the time. Most of us can do it some of the time. Some of us can manage it most of the time. A few of us almost never succeed at controlling our fear responses. Let’s try to hold some love and understanding for our brothers and sisters who cannot stop themselves from spreading their fears around.
[Signed, niftywriter]
[Used with permission. ~2t]
Poll #1: Who Won the Week?
ICYMU: This Week in Gnuville
In case you missed us: Miss a day or two? Need more Good News? Need respites from doom scrolling? New to Good News Roundups? Breaking the doomscrolling habit?
Eight diaries this week! Bonus Wednesday diary.
WineRev’s Good and Goofy Notes
Watch for WineRev’s G&G notes in the comments to see what others went through, struggled with, and surmounted in the past. His G&G comments are mini Good News Roundups. You can find all his comments here, even today’s, once he posts it. Tech Tip: You can search for >>> in Roundups to quickly find his comments.
From our dear WineRev, last Sunday:
Tundra, a lounge, a kettle, an ice-fishing hole, a bar, a rock crusher (an inside joke), a tender’s surname, indoor warmth and internal rhyme, a blanket, a spectrum of comments, a melt, and a dose.
From the Frozen Tundra of Tundraland (Montana to Minnesota to Michigan….plus other states that don’t start with an “M”) the Gnuville Breakfast Brunch and Igloo Lounge is open for comments. You can see that our host, 2thanks, has chipped open the doors, recycled those ice chunks into melt water, strained out any crud, and then tossed them all into a huge kettle to produce……..water! (Liquid form.) From there it has been a short trip to boiling, accompanied by coffee, tea and mocha-cocoa.
Meanwhile, the ice fishing hole drilling detritus (!) has produced a barrel of ice chips. The Mimosa Bar is ALSO recycling, running these chunky chips through the Gnuville Rock Crusher to reduce them in size. Then the ICEE machine ice grinder takes over to produce just the perfect mini-chips. Bartender Margarita d’Ville is happy to point out not only is there ice…...”there’s booze in the blender/and soon it will render/ that frozen concoction that helps me hang on!” (Oh, and mimosas are also being served, in 14 fruit flavors…..)
Thank you for the Round Up 2thanks! Plenty of Good News for everyone wearing jammies, slippers and robes, and it all settles comfortably as a blanket of pixels over the Igloo Lounge denizens as they read, comment, amplify, verify, digress-ify, correct-ify and snark-ify through the Sunday Rounding. Thank you, 2 thanks, for the ice melting and sturdy dose of optimism.
Science
Please share good science news with us! (Especially JSWT, health, environment.)
A good place to look for science news if you are waiting for the Sunday Roundup is the archive of Overnight News Digest. On Saturdays, the OND always focuses on science, though not all of it is devoted to what I would call Good Science News.
Need more good news?
… arhpdx posted a list of good news sites toward the top of a recent Roundup, or you can find that same list in my comment: Good News Sources. Thank you, arhpdx and Mokurai!
[On a desktop, you could open that comment in a new Tab by clicking the timestamp, and then you could Bookmark that page or save it to your Favorites.]
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Where Ever is Herd
Morning Good News Roundups at 7 x 7: These Gnusies lead the herd at 7 a.m. ET, 7 days a week:
- Mondays The GNR Newsroom (Jessiestaf, Killer300, and Bhu)
- Tuesdays arhpdx and niftywriter
- Wednesdays: 2nd MCUBernieFan, 3rd WineRev, 4th karij. 1st and 5th: lemay50, Andrew F Cockburn, DoctorStrange.
- Thursdays Mokurai
- Fridays chloris creator, regular links to the White House Briefing Room.
- Saturdays GoodNewsRoundup, the one and only!
- Sundays 2thanks — A brief roundup of Roundups, a retrospective, a smorgasbord, a bulletin board, an oasis, a watering hole, a thunder of hooves, a wellness, a place for beginners to learn the rules of the veldt. For instance, we do not welcome grammar-police comments in Roundups.
hpg posts Evening Shade diaries at 7:30 p.m. ET every day. After a long day, Gnusies meet in the evening shade and continue sharing Good News, good community, and good actions. Find Evening Shades here or on the Trending List.
For more information about the Good News group, please see our detailed Welcoming comment, one of the first comments in our morning diaries.
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Action Steps from Gnusies
Four of our Good News writers regularly post a panoply of fantastic action steps in their Good News Roundups. If you don’t see a way to become active that suits your personality, your funds, or your time, please review their most recent diaries for many different options to volunteer and/or donate:
On Daily Kos:
We welcome comments in Roundups every day regarding:
- National or local Good News.
- Links, stories, music, videos, quotes, tweets. (No tweets or images of the saffron chlamidiot, please.)
- Your resistance activity.
In my Sunday smorgasbord Roundups, I especially welcome the following types of comments:
- Who won YOUR week?
- Questions about Daily Kos tech issues or our map.
- Good News Roundups and you.
- How are you resisting?
- How are you supporting Democratic candidates?
- Please let’s stick to Good News today, no mews or databases.
In the comments of all Roundups, we do not welcome Grammar Police or Debbie Downers.
Top Image of This Story: Edward Song created the top image of 3 cavorting gnus using an AI tool, Dalle.
Our Roundup is almost open!
Thank you for fighting for truth and justice with all us Gnusies! 40% of our Readers don’t visit every day, 50% of us do, and 10% are here for the first time! We all do what we can. For 5 years, we’ve shared positive news, laughed, organized, resisted, rebelled, revolted without being revolting, relied, rested, mentored, created, crossed rivers, chewed our cud, puffed methane out both ends, and laughed. Here’s looking at you, kid, and standing upwind! Beginners, you are cordially invited to comment!
As always, please share more Good News than I can find or provide.
This is a group diary, and by my power I declare this Good Gnus Salo(o)n open! Let the good-news sharing and community building begin!
Power with, not power over ❤️ ✊ ❤️
2thanks (he, him)