FEVER DREAM: Moms with Laptops and Courage
Project 2025 is coming for us and we are coming for Project 2025
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I woke up stiff from dancing to Chaka Khan last night. The Goddess of Funk performed two sets — one dedicated to jazz classics and the other dedicated to her hits with Rufus and from her solo career. When she walked onto the stage of the Hollywood Bowl in layered tulle and glitter fishnets and sparkle, I knew I was in the presence of a goddess. I was a guest of the Houston brothers — nightclub impresarios who share their box seats with me on occasion — and I looked up at the starry starry skies with gratitude.
Music for me is self-care, and a big part of my world. I started as a ticket runner at age 11 at the Circle Star Theatre in NorCal and never stopped going to hear music. By the time I wrote my last column as the nightclub columnist for the Los Angeles Times for 15 years, I had seen every artist I ever wanted to see, and mostly at small venues like the Viper Room. I knew how special it was, and I never took it for granted.
When Chaka Khan sang I’m Every Woman, it was charged with the energy of the election ahead of us. As I told our viewers on RadPod & Chill on Thursday, if we pull off a victory with Kamala Harris, it will have made the whole damn thing worth it.
Do whatever you need to do to stay out of despair and fear, and I recommend service. Be of service to your democracy, and be part of an army of good citizens who refuse to accept a fascist America.
Today, as I was zipping around to meetings, I felt words erupting from my soul, but they hadn’t quite formed a cohesive narrative yet.
Fever Dream
I went to rest for a while and nodded off into a dream.
The dream was very specific.
In the dream, I said these words:
“It’s not just that the oligarchs know global warming is real and while they distract us with culture wars, they are stealing all of earth’s resources — attempting to create a new feudalism. Yes, that’s part of it. But there’s something else. The reason they want to control all of us and destroy democracy is that in this new connected world, moms with laptops and courage shed light on the criminality of these oligarchs — we investigate and expose criminals. We’ve been doing the work of the FBI and law enforcement, and as we’ve been doing the work to expose criminal networks, the enforcement agencies have become more radicalized. In Russia, the reason they lock women and men up who expose Putin’s criminal regime is they can’t have the truth leaking out for fear the people might get ideas. As we know, Project 2025 is a recipe for ending democracy and part of that is an end to the independent reporters and teams of activists who have been working feverishly to expose the criminality of US traitors aligned with Putin and other foreign enemy states, who by the way, still roam free.”
And then as I finished that speech, in my fever dream, four people walked into my home, and one of them was my dad from the ‘70s. My pre-radicalized father.
I bolted straight up from the dream, recorded what I had reported in that dream, and spent the next few hours recovering from the emotional journey it took me on.
I never forgot when Jason Stanley explained why the christofascists went after women’s health care — with one move, they took control of half the population. As I reported in my Project 2025 investigation, the extremists are mapping out how they plan to destroy our democracy.
As Gal Suburban noted in our recent Founder’s Day event, these extremists mobilized after the Civil Rights era in an attempt to bring back what Craig Unger calls the Confederacy 2.0.
I am sharing my fever dream with you, because I know I am right. An autocratic America cannot allow moms with laptops and courage exposing US traitors aligned with foreign dictators, and dads like Jim and HiFi who expose networks of criminals because they don’t want to raise their children in a fascist hellscape.
Even though I predicated the deluge of misogyny and racism that we would be confronted with, and offered you tools on how to mentally prepare, it is still unfun.
But at least they’re telling us who they are. Trump is telling us we will no longer have elections just like Putin’s Russia, which has elections in name only.
There is no mystery to what’s ahead. I can see the future in my dreams.
I have always dreamed the future, but today’s dream was more of a warning of what’s to come if we don’t fight hard enough.
I plan to do all I can.
Thank you to all of you who support my work.
If you can afford to join or upgrade at the Founding Member premium subscription level, please do. Founding members have the additional benefit of joining our monthly Founder’s Day events, and these two events with Gal Suburban and Craig Unger are spectacular.
We’re gonna get through this.
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More info about Bette Dangerous - This magazine is written by Heidi Siegmund Cuda, an Emmy-award winning investigative reporter/producer, author, and veteran music and nightlife columnist. She is the cohost of RADICALIZED Truth Survives, an investigative show about disinformation and is part of the Byline Media team. Thank you for your support of independent investigative journalism.
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Begin each day with a grateful heart.
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This gave me chills, Heidi. I almost never remember my dreams- I don't know how often you do, but I felt this message came through you, like a conduit. Those who seek and protect freedom for others live in a higher spiritual plane than those who press freedom for only themselves. There are more of us than of them. Praying for and holding up all the freedom fighters today and often ♥️
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