Secular Zoom Community

To all new people, our group is against Christian nationalism. Christian zoom bombers invaded our meetings until we decided to vet everyone who attends. Directions about how to get vetted are included after our meeting details below.

You cannot make this stuff up. Trump went to Davos and insulted Europeans enough so that they realized that they had no chance to appease or negotiate anything sensible. Mark Carney, the Canadian Prime Minister, had a courageous speech, correctly called what is happening a “rupture” in the existing world order. Our foreign policy is now gangster diplomacy. This means just take what you want because you have the power to take it. The prior world order was designed to prevent this. Venezuela’s oil is a moderately valuable asset. Sanction all oil tankers servicing the country and actually capture and impound the oil as it leaves, until the regime accepts that the US has control of that resource. The proceeds of oil sales are deposited in a Qatar account. Trump, “All I want is Greenland.” Tariffs and military action were both threatened if he did not get this territory. The insane drumbeat of threats and pleading continued long after other European countries rallied around Denmark and their Greenland territory. Calling Greenland Iceland four times is just one of the signs of obvious mental decline. Jimmy Kimmel called this DementiaCon 5, a spoof on Defcon 5. When asked what limits his power his reply was, “my own morality.” So far, the Supreme Court and Republican congressional majorities have provided very minor limits on executive power.

Minneapolis has only 3 murders this year and 2 of them were by Federal agents. There were outrageous claims of “domestic terrorism.” Renee Goode was claimed to aim her car at an ICE agent. She was turning away. Alex Pretti never waved a gun, and was killed after his gun was removed and he was controlled by six federal officers. A 5 year old child was arrested and used as a bait to arrest others. ICE was creating “administrative warrants” in their own offices to allow themselves to break into home and grab people. The 4th amendment demands that they go to a federal judge to get a judicial warrant. Over 30 people were killed by ICE last year. These killings were mostly people of color, so they did not have the impact of the Goode and Pretti murders.

Billy Eilish won solo song of the year at the Grammy Awards. Her comment when accepting, “No one is illegal on stolen land.” That captures a view of universal empathy and recognition of shared humanity. We could use a bit more of that.

The Grifter-in-Chief is suing his own Justice Department for $230 million and $10 billion. Given that the Attorney General and Assistant Attorney General were prior personal Trump lawyers, there is no way that these suits can dealt with without conflicts of interest. Recent news included a $500 million investment in Liberty Financial by a United Arab Emirates firm four day before inauguration. This is widely seen as a bribe to get advanced AI chips. Bezos paid $40 million for the widely panned Melania movie. There was another $35 million spent to advertise it. It is highly unlikely that this movie will make back 10% of these investments. Typical review, “ghastly bit of pure propaganda.” These Bezos investments are purely to curry favor with someone who has a hole in psyche that always wants more and that hole could never be filled until the universe recognized that only he can fix everything. [And that is not gonna happen.]

The Fulton County Georgia Election Board was raided and all ballots were boxed and removed. There is a doubling down on the “2020 election was stolen” conspiracy theory. In connection with this there is now a claim of foreign technology being used to change ballots. Tulsi Gabbard, the Director of National Intelligence was there. These ballots were literally counted three times. Claims that “there will be prosecutions” were voiced. This is intended to install fear in other state offices managing voting systems. 24 states have DOJ lawsuits pending demanding voting roles including all information that cannot be legally conveyed under the many state laws. Under the Constitution voting systems are managed by the states. Trump is demanding extensive federal control over who votes and how they vote.

By law the EPA is required to calculate the value of a human life. They used to say each life was worth $4.3 million. An analysis claimed that each dollar invested in a safe environment returned over $70 in better health and productivity. They now say these benefits are uncertain and all they will calculate is the cost to industry. That means that our rights to a clean, safe, environment is removed and industry will be able to do anything they want.

As usual, these actions of greed, thuggery, repudiation of rights and unrestrained attempts to grab power, are a small fraction of the routine atrocities that are now the fabric of American life (and what the rest of the planet must endure until it ends). Will democracy and science and reason survive? We will see. We will cherish and support each other as we cope with this tidal wave of madness. Let’s connect and share our thoughts on how to find our joy and nurture it in others.

For all new people – Only vetted secular people will receive the meeting links with a separate email. Please see the instructions at the end of this post. Our meetings are much more pleasurable without Christian trolls zoom booming our discussions. The vetting is worth the effort.
Please see directions below for new members who would like to receive the zoom link to attend.

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Our meetings have become a target for organized zoom bombing. Our major topic of discussion has been Christian nationalism and its hideous impacts across America. They have good reason to try to force us to stop our meetings. This requires us to work to preclude militant religious extremists from wrecking our meetings.

We will not post the zoom link for our meeting. The zoom link information will be delivered by email or direct personal messaging to trusted attendees only. I am now comfortable that this procedure works well enough so that a zoom waiting room will not be required.
I have a Google Voice phone number, (202) 643-4366. I do not answer calls to that number. But it does an excellent job of transcribing messages. People can use this number to verbally describe items requested in a possible email below.
I use the email: don1wharton (at) outlook (dot) com for social media, including Meetup. Please email the following:

Name:
Zoom ID if different than name:
your email to receive zoom info:
Specify that you are RSVPing for this meeting only if you
do not want to receive future zoom invites.

--People can UNSUBSCRIBE by replying to a future zoom invite with UNSUB in the subject line.
If you are a first time attendee, please share prior secular activities or cite your prior secular meetup attendance (making sure it is visible for us to confirm it) or arrange for a brief phone or zoom interview at a time of your convenience. This should insure enjoyable meetings.
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