Marianne Williamson is the leader we need for these dark times but won't get.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

[Scoopster]

1. Hell no.

We already have a person in the White House who props up conspiracy theories and insults & shames people with mental or health issues. Why the hell would we want another one?

[DemocratSinceBirth]

4. Marianne is a healer.

Who did she shame ?

And what conspiracies did she propound?

[Scoopster]

14. Healer my ass.

She literally told gay people infected with HIV that the disease wasn't real & that it could be treated with thoughts & prayers.

She's literally fat shamed people.

She's literally shamed people with mental health issues.

She's literally & consistently, until a few weeks ago, been an anti-vaxxer conspiracy nut.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

17. I assume you have citations for your accusations.

That's how we roll here.

[Clarity2]

33. Here

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/amp/ncna1035956?

Really, if people vote based on how a candidate makes them feel, rather than do due diligence in knowing their candidates backgrounds...well, this is how we got trump.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

41. It's an opinion piece based on random quotes taken out of context.

[Clarity2]

43. From her book

Link to tweet

?s=21

[DemocratSinceBirth]

44. Your link goes to a twitter thread which ends in her denying she told sick people to eschew medicine

Prayer or positive thinking is a supplement to treatment. She isn't saying it should be a replacement.

[Me.]

30. You Have Proof Of That Or Is This A Someone Said?

“In recent weeks, researchers have been investigating her work in the HIV sphere and, according to Williamson, have fabricated the message.

Furthermore, journalist Lindsay Beyerstein accused Williamson of telling “gay men dying of AIDS that they should learn to love their virus,” sharing a story from StateAndCityNY.com about her activism as it pertains to the book A Course in Miracles.

Last month, however, Williamson acknowledged the misconception that she’s told people dealing with AIDS complications to opt for prayer and meditation instead of their meds, tweeting:

If you ever read an article saying that I told people with AIDS they didn't have to take their medicine because positive thinking would cure it; or that I ever told people who got sick that negative thinking caused it; please know both those things are complete and utter lies.

— Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson) June 23, 2019”

[G_j]

11. ?

whatever you think of her, there is no reason to smear her with untruths.

[Scoopster]

15. Untruths?

Everything I have said is a fact that's come out of her own damn mouth.

[Me.]

31. Then Prove It

[TEB]

2. She truly has the hippie vibe

Last edited Wed Jul 31, 2019, 05:44 PM - Edit history (1)

[NRaleighLiberal]

3. Way too woo, not Patrow level, but ...same neighborhood

[IronLionZion]

5. I hope she gets some sort of role in a Dem administration

Secretary of Peace and Love or something.

I'm not sure why DUers would hate on new age hippies. They're harmless.

[Autumn]

6. Because it's easy to hate on women who don't fit into the box they have created.nt

[G_j]

12. word

[Merlot]

35. yes, women are easy targets for hate for any small

infringement or out of the box thinking.

[Celerity]

36. truth

[Raine]

50. Exactly! nt

[underpants]

7. She will bring the eternal light of joy to the White House

She will also align our nation’s chakras

[DemocratSinceBirth]

8. Can you imagine her debating Trump.

It would be like a human debating a golem.

[BeyondGeography]

9. And sage-cleansed kitchens

Leading to a thinner America.

[underpants]

16. Exactly

[BeyondGeography]

18. Superb...she has no finer advocate on this board

[highplainsdem]

10. She has no chance of getting the nomination, of course. But much of what she said last night

made sense. And, just as importantly, she said it in a way that connected with the audience.

She's right that we can't defeat Trump with wonkiness.


https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/30/20747997/marianne-williamson-democratic-debate-2020-memes-cnn

My response on the Flint water crisis is that Flint is just the tip of the iceberg. I was recently in Denmark, South Carolina, where there is a lot of talk about it being the next Flint. We have an administration that has gutted the Clean Water Act. We have communities, particularly communities of color and disadvantaged communities, all over this country who are suffering from environmental injustice. I assure you, I lived in Grosse Pointe. What happened in Flint would not have happened in Grosse Pointe.

This is part of the dark underbelly of American society — the racism, the bigotry. And the entire conversation that we’re having here tonight, if you think any of this wonkiness is going to deal with this dark psychic force of the collectivized hatred that this president is bringing up in this country, then I’m afraid the Democrats are going to see some very dark days.

We need to say it like it is. It’s bigger than Flint. It’s all over this country. It’s particularly people of color. It’s particularly people who do not have the money to fight back, and if the Democrats don’t start saying it, then why would those people feel they’re there for us? And if those people don’t feel it, they won’t vote for us and Donald Trump will win.

[yardwork]

56. That right there is a very good statement, I agree.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

13. The bootstrapping message is garbage whether it's for economic advancement or mental/physical

health. She got a good message on reparations and she's entertaining. But other things she proposes do real damage to people.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

19. What bootstrapping message?

There is a huge difference in telling individuals they are powerful and telling individuals to pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. The former is helpful and comes from a good place. The latter is not. We need not be powerless. We can be participants in our own well being.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

32. The way she talks about people with sickness or mental health issues is patently offensive, saying

people don't have to "choose" depression, or that people should try to figure out what HIV is trying to tell them. It's garbage.

[Autumn]

47. That's not a bootstrapping message. She's telling people they can chose to get well, not alone

but with help. As for your claim that she's telling people with HIV/AIDS to find out what it's trying to tell them is complete horse shit. She co-founded the Los Angeles and Manhattan Centers for Living, where HIV/AIDS patients could connect with psychological and emotional resources. Something badly needed by people who are dying of AIDS and people who are HIV positive. What's garbage is being alone with no support.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

49. Thank you, Autumn. You want great news?

With early diagnosis and treatment people with HIV can live as long as people without it:

Life expectancies close to 80 years for young people starting HIV meds early

https://www.sfaf.org/collections/beta/life-expectancies-close-to-80-years-for-young-people-starting-hiv-meds-early/






P.S. I see all of Marianne Williamson's positions negatively caricatured here. It's sad but I don't have time to rebut them all

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

20. Not just no but hell no.

She may be well-meaning but she has no business anywhere near the White House.

When the presidential candidate closed the second night of the first Democratic debates by explaining that she was “going to harness love for political purposes,” the internet couldn’t get enough (myself included). But by the end of the night, Williamson criticism was also in full force. Jezebel rounded up some of her past tweets, many of which are truly bizarre. There’s a directive to “visualize angels dispersing [nuclear radiation] into nothingness,” and another suggesting we ought to “pour God’s love on our immune systems” to avoid swine flu. The Daily Beast criticized her for claims that we can manifest our own realities and called her “an anti-vaxxer before anti-vaxxers were anti-vaxxers,” noting that she said at a campaign event in mid-June that requiring kids to get vaccines is “draconian.” ......

.... I felt compelled to revisit her work and positions, since, well, recent history suggests it is worth it to understand the positions of even long-shot presidential candidates with no political experience. I wanted to see whether her beliefs, particularly those about science, should give us pause. What I found about her positions was not straightforward. To call her a “wacko,” as the Daily Beast does, or “just a skip and a hop away from a 14-part tweet thread about chemtrails,” as Jezebel does, is to ignore a more complicated—and, I think, dangerous—force. She’s not necessarily against science, she’s just willing to prioritize feelings, hers or yours, over science or facts. Which, frankly, seems to be part of her appeal.....

All of this is unsurprising, if unproductive, coming from a self-help author—her job thus far has largely been to convince people that she can help them via little more than advice on how to think positively. The problem is what happens when these ideas, and this way of thinking, are unleashed onto a national stage, by someone who has never held a political office of any kind: We all end up taking another little step on America’s long journey toward prioritizing feeling over fact in detrimental ways.

We have long demanded that our politicians be skilled at “connecting” with us—able to give speeches that make us feel warm and fuzzy, able to present us with an appealing vision board of the future. In Williamson, as in Trump, we have the extreme of that, which is part of why she sucked me in in the first place. After the past three years, I sure wish America’s woes could be solved via the harnessing of love. And yet if we’ve learned anything, it’s that the job of president is a highly technical one, perhaps even something we might want to elect an actual politician with evidence-based policy experience to do. Which might be why I think that if we want to fix this mess, we need someone who approaches the problem with a bit more rigor than Marianne Williamson.

https://slate.com/technology/2019/07/marianne-williamson-anti-science-stances-investigated-presidential-race.html

[DemocratSinceBirth]

21. It seems like she's being gish galloped

Her foundational ethic seems to be that we are are all powerful and valuable and have it within us to be participants in our own well being.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

22. Nothing wrong with that but it doesn't mean she's qualified to be president.

[DemocratSinceBirth]

24. I started the thread as a bit of a lark

But the attacks on are over the top. She has been accused in this thread of telling sick people to eschew meds, body shaming people, and telling people to pull up themselves up by their own bootstraps, et cetera.


Like most motivational speakers she is saying we should be active participants in our own well being. As long as the message is moored in reason, logic, and common sense it has a place in society.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

25. It does have a place in society but that place is not the White House.

Link to tweet

Link to tweet

"Weight that disappears from your body but not from your soul is simply recycling outward for a while but is almost certain to return"

[hatrack]

37. DA FUQ?!?!?

.

[Me.]

34. That Sort Of Thing Has Me Also Standing Up For Her

No way she's our nominee but she is receiving a real big kicking here and seems to generate anger that is way out of proportion. How many people here or on that stage have started a charity that feeds people who are ill or have HIV the way her Project Angel Food does? At least she's walking her talk in that regard. And as I have said, several times now, she and John Lewis are talking the same talk.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

38. Big difference between supporting or starting charities or doing other good works

and running for president. Her support for charitable causes is commendable, but, like Oprah and many other philanthropists, good works and positive thoughts aren't sufficient qualifications for the presidency.

[Me.]

40. Not Everyone On That Stage Would Make A Good President

and deserves to be there. I see her, as long as she makes the cut, having every right to be there as the other low% candidates. I'm also surprised at all the she has received today but good for her. She'll be gone before long but she has contributed to the conversation.

[TheCowsCameHome]

23. We need someone that can actually win this time.

America cannot withstand four more years of Trump.

[handmade34]

26. I love Marianne Williamson

she won't be President but I love her presence...

[MoonRiver]

42. Same here, and I hope the world keeps hearing from her, long after the election.

[Tarc]

27. I wasn't aware we needed a fringe antivax faith-healer to lead us

Her 15 minutes are just about up, thankfully.

[crazytown]

28. Oh DSB, you're such a card

[BannonsLiver]

29. Thank God.

[Paladin]

39. You know who else loves Williamson? The Drudge Report!

The right-wing site is in the process of screaming its enthusiasm over the possibility of Democrats being suicidal enough to give any credence whatsoever to a goof like Williamson. Please, people---get your heads in the game and be serious.

[lpbk2713]

45. You're half right.

And a .500 average isn't so bad when you think about it.

[Beringia]

46. I tried a couple of her books last week, but after reading a few pages, I gave up

If I were to vote in a presidential
primary today, I would vote for:
Man in the Prairie

[yardwork]

48. Are you serious?! She's an anti vaxxer.

[samnsara]

51. please no more....

[True Dough]

52. Somebody loves attention!

Make that a party of two.

[Ponietz]

53. I appreciate listening to her, and agree on many points, but dismiss her candidacy

She has zero chance of gaining the nomination and the last thing we need is another glarey-eyed 3rd party candidacy to divide us.

[jcgoldie]

54. ...

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/7/31/20748594/marianne-williamson-debate-democratic-july-2019-depression

[Indykatie]

55. Thank Gawd For That!!