Where’s the Courage

by Ruth A. Sheets

The Supreme Court ended its term this week and demonstrated once again that courage is simply not part of their repertoire.

Maybe that is what we want in Supreme Court justices, as little manifest courage as can be managed. 

During this term, the justices decided that corporations are persons with much more value than any other persons.  They awarded victories to nearly every corporation that stood against the “little guy” with the guidance and support of the Chamber of Commerce.  A woman’s health was destroyed by drugs not properly reported as having massive side effects, but the pharmaceutical industry was declared immune to responsibility.  Standing for the weak would have required courage.  We’ll all suffer for this one. 

Now, your boss can sexually or in any other way harass you and it is only really harassment if that person has the power to fire you.  The Court does not have the courage to acknowledge that real sexual harassment still goes on every day, and not always by the higher-ups who actually do the hiring and firing in large corporations. 

It seems that when our courts are bought and paid for by big business, it is hard for them to stand against these businesses even when the plaintiffs really do have a good case. 

Then, the Court’s Hypocrican constituents begged for the Court to put down the Voting Rights Act of 1965.  The timid justices said “Now’s our chance.  We’ll just say that things are better now while we give our buddies in the racist states free reign to stop those people we/they don’t want voting.  Awesome!”

The justices couldn’t even see that the young woman who challenged the University of Texas “affirmative action” practices just didn’t meet the school’s standards and that lots of other people were turned down just as she was.  She was nothing special, well, she was white, after all.  Did the justices acknowledge that UT is really working to make their campus more inclusive?  Of course not.  That would have required the courage they do not have.  They spewed some wishy-washy nonsense about using race only if there is no other way to include more non-white students

To make sure that people didn’t start an American Spring, they threw a little candy to the LGBT community.  There was no courage here even though I hear the word a lot this week.  They didn’t say, as they should have that all restriction against gay marriage in the United States is unconstitutional.  They merely sent the Prop 8 ruling back to the lower courts, not exactly courageous.  They put down DOMA, but that was unconstitutional when it was passed as a political maneuver in 1996 to appease the Republicans.  Where is the courage?

But, there was some political courage displayed this week.  Texas State Senator Wendy Davis, stood 11 hours to filibuster an appalling anti-woman bill in the Texas legislature.  Despite some ridiculous rules and procedures, she stood there alone, no support, faced with Republicans just dying to shut her down.  That is real courage and scares the heck out of all those Hypocricans who have none but pretend they do.  And, of course, they are trying their best to make what she did seem trivial and un-American.  Pathetic!

Voting Discrimination, Allowed By Law

by muon

The Supreme Court made some bad rulings this month. Bad for the citizens they will effect, surely, and as a result, bad for the democracy, but also bad in a legal sense. There was nothing judicious, or even logical, about their decisions.

You've probably all heard about the Voting Rights Act ruling by now. Some of you don't know about the 5th amendment decision that, regardless of the fact that you're read Miranda rights upon arrest, your silence can be used against you as evidence of guilt, eliminating the whole concept of "innocent until proven guilty."

Another bad decision involved on-the-job harassment cases. The SCOTUS ruled that these cases are only valid if the harasser is a supervisor. You can be sexually, racially, or religiously harassed by anyone else at your workplace, and if your employer does nothing, your only recourse now is to quit your job.

But let's take a closer look at the VRA decision. The court overturned Section 4 of the Act, which requires states with a history of racial discrimination to go through the Justice Department for approval any time they want to make a change to their voting laws or procedures. The court claimed that the formula used to determine which states to include was obsolete, that America had changed. They more or less claimed that the US no longer has a problem with voter discrimination based on race.

The illogic? Justice Ginsburg said it eloquently in her dissent: "Throwing out preclearance when it has worked, and is continuing to work to stop discriminatory changes, is like throwing away your umbrella in a rainstorm because you are not getting wet." You don't knock down a levee because you haven't had a flood in ten years. You don't take the locks off your doors because you haven't had a robbery.

Still, maybe this is an opportunity to revise Section 4 so it reflects the America of today. Voter discrimination is no longer limited to race. In the last election, you might have experienced voter discrimination if you were African-American, but you could have easily been discriminated against for being Hispanic, Muslim, poor, illiterate, handicapped, female, or a college student. There were incidents of discrimination against anyone registering voters into the Democratic party, for Pete's sake.

We don't need a formula. We need a comprehensive law covering ALL states. If any state wants to change voting laws and procedures, the change should have to be approved by the Justice Department, after a thorough scrutiny to make sure the change wouldn't disenfranchise even one voter. Some states will come back with, "We aren't children. We don't need a babysitter." Maybe if they'd stop acting like hateful, power-hungry brats, this wouldn't be necessary.

Too Many Secrets

by Ruth A. Sheets

Anyone who has been charged with keeping a secret knows that one secret often begets more secrets as well as a plethora of lies.  It is essential to remember who knows and who should never know, is a cover story necessary, what happens if someone becomes suspicious.

My family is really big for keeping secrets.  The excuse most often given is, “I knew what you would say and . . .”  The second most common response, “I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings.”

The secret keepers feel smug that they got the word and had the privilege/honor of keeping information from everyone else.  This implies that somehow, that makes for more trust.   In addition to whatever other roles the family member already has, this gives them the role of official secret keeper.  The person can now gloat when the secret comes out, “ I knew that two years (or whatever time period) ago.  If someone else learns the secret, the secret keeper can become extremely angry, sometimes feigned, sometimes real.  And, it doesn’t matter who might be affected by the secrets, how much pain is inflicted.

Over time, it becomes harder to discern the truth from lies used to maintain the secret.  Once the holding of secrets has worked, it makes more secrecy inevitable.  This process can undermine a family.  

The current happenings related to the NSA (National Security Agency) remind me of this sort of family secret keeping.  Some secrecy makes sense when the family is as large as the United States of America.  We don’t want everything we know out there for everyone to know.  Keep in mind the old cliche “forewarned is forearmed.” 

The problem in the US family, there are too many secrets about too many things.  No longer are our secrets confined to a limited number of people in a limited number of agencies.  It seems that whatever the military does is secret unless special dispensation is given.  That is also true of the State Department, the CIA, the FBI, Homeland Security, and so on and so forth.  These agencies and departments can know anything they deem important about us, the citizens, but we are to know as little as possible about them and their work.

Edward Snowden, self-professed whistle-blower, contracted NSA employee, let out a few secrets, none of which are either earth-shattering or worthy of the outrage of those whose self-esteem is wrapped up in keeping them.  Despite this, Mr. Snowden is being hounded and charged with espionage and other crimes which could lead to his torture or death at the hands of other secret-keepers.  The insidious part is that many among us don’t even recognize these practices as un-American.

Bradley Manning, another American who got sick of the secrets has spent 3 years in custody under conditions no American should suffer. 

The secret-keepers want everyone to believe that everything they hide is of utmost importance and only they have the wherewithall to protect it. 

I may not approve of the self-serving arrogance of Julian Isange of Wikileaks and Edward Snowden formerly of the NSA, but they have performed a service for all Americans.  They have pointed the spotlight at the insanity of our secret-keeping and at least, for awhile, we are talking about it.  The problem is not really with the whistle-blowers.  It is with the large number of government employees charged with keeping so many secrets from the rest of America.  When the government blames the whistle-blowers, it takes our attention from the real problem and allows the grip to be tighten on secrecy.  The media helps by repeating the position of the secret-keepers – “We need this to be secret or we won’t be able to protect Americans from terrorists.” 

We do need some secrecy related to our security, but that must be very limited and conducted within the law and our Constitution.  If information about our phone-calling and emailing are required, ask us and tell us why.  Stop the secret courts, the illegal requests for information from the businesses we have trusted with our data. 

A healthy, happy family has a minimum of secrets.  I want to see our nation happy and healthy, so let’s drop the feigned outrage that we citizens now know a few more things we should have known all along.

Hypocricans in Fine Form

by Ruth A. Sheets

It is not possible to overestimate the fear and loathing projected by the Hypocricans in Congress these days.  This week they have stepped up their efforts to eliminate women’s right to choose.  They also continued their assault on the poorest among us.  Their terror of immigrants, particularly those from Mexico and points south raised its head again.

The Hypocricans in the House of Representatives voted to outlaw abortions at 20 weeks gestation, criminalizing women who choose to terminate pregnancy beyond that point.  Some didn’t even want to make exceptions for rape, incest or health of the mother.  Do these mostly white men really care that much for the offspring of those pregnancies?  Not really.  If they did, these same Hypocricans would not have voted to lower funding for the food stamp program.  One would think they would be increasing all kinds of support to families in poverty.  They would at least double the money for family planning and contraception to keep such unwanted pregnancies at a minimum. 

So what is going on here?  You know!  The war on women progresses.

Hypocricans say they are fiscal conservatives.  That is an interesting claim.  Let’s check it out.

Just so they don’t have to pay for food stamps and other programs to support folks in poverty, they will continue direct payments to farmers, even if they don’t grow anything.  How do these things connect?  Well, the Farm Bill was up for a vote this week.  The Democrats, against their better judgment, compromised to lower payments for food stamps a little.  It wasn’t enough for the Hypocricans, who rejected the whole bill.  This means that the current farm subsidies will remain in place, money not spent wisely.  Hypocricans couldn’t stick it to those lazy poor people, so the whole bill goes down.

Next these “fiscal conservatives” pinned an amendment to the immigration bill demanding a level  of border security impossible to achieve.  This will cost billions of dollars.  Even though few immigrants are coming from Mexico these days, the proposal is to double the number of border guards and build more fences.  Their fear of the Latinos is evident since there is no proposal for fences and walls on our border with Canada.   Hypocricans then tie the “path to citizenship” for undocumented immigrants to the insane border requirements.  The Hypocricans actually believe in their heart of hearts that such blatant racism will win them Latino votes.  Really!

The scary part for me is that a lot of Americans support the Hypocricans.  Fear and loathing are such easy emotions and can be mined at little cost.  It takes little effort to convince people that someone is out to get what they have.  With facility, people can be persuaded that danger is around every corner, that evil lurks behind every door.   Who is presenting these threats:  women who want control over their own bodies, people sneaking over the border, indolent poor who prey on the rich.  And, of course, we all must be protected from them.

Perhaps, instead of the witch hunts they are instituting, Hypocricans should look in the mirror to find the evil they seek.

Hypocricans vs Women

by Ruth A. Sheets

The Hypocricans are now getting more serious about their attacks against women.  Why?  What has changed? 

Women have changed. 

Hypocricans harken back to a time when “men were men,” which, of course, meant, in charge, dominant, forceful, and all those other manly terms.  The men didn’t really have to grow up.  Their wives simply stepped into the place their mothers had held. 

Women bought into this structure for society because the Bible said that was how it was supposed to be. Occasional volunteering kept women’s yearning for something more at bay.

After each of America’s wars, when women were coaxed back to the home, more and more women refused to accept the prescribed roles.  In the wartime jobs, they had functioned at least as well as their male counterparts and learned a thing or two about propaganda.  While the men were marching off to glory, the women were operating the machinery that provided everything from ships to planes to tanks to ammunition. 

When the men came marching home, women were told how patriotic it would be for them to go home and give their jobs back to the men. Those who didn’t leave voluntarily were fired and sent home to take care of their hero husbands.  Women were encouraged to produce as many kids as possible. After WWII, they gave birth to the baby boomers.  Women fell into the oblivion of housewifery.  The problem for the men was that these women kept with them the memories of a life of skilled work, appreciation for their efforts, and independence.  It was hard to go back under a man’s thumb. Through propaganda men tried to damp down the restlessness.

Men, particularly white men, naturally want to go back to those days.  They may not have much power on the job, but by God, they had it in the home. 

Women have come quite a distance from those days, but there is a strong movement among the Hypocricans to bring those days back.  They have created a scism among women, e.g., stay-at-home-moms vs. working moms.  There isn’t that much of a gap between these groups, but the stays have been propagandized to believe that everyone is against them for doing God’s will or for caring more about their children, or some other nonsense.  Most working mothers don’t think much about the stays either way.

Men have jumped on the issue of abortion.  It really has nothing to do with them directly, but they want to outlaw it and the women who choose it.  Why is that?  Abortion represents women having power over their own bodies and their lives and what happens to them.  Men can’t stand that because it represents female independence.

However, men want to keep contraception from women as well.  If women have the means to keep from getting pregnant unless they want a child, it is harder to make them feel dirty, slutty, and shameful.  Bearing children too young or in difficult living situations helps to keep women’s self-esteem low.  When women have control, their self-esteem rises.  That can lead to getting involved in other things, like politics, business, law, medicine, ministry, all formerly bastions of male dominance.

Now, women are being blamed for the “terrible state of our society.”  Accourding to Hypocricans, Our nation is in decline toward mediocrity because so many of our women are working and are not taking proper care of our children.  This has been stated by some prominent SWG’s (Scared White Guys).  They are hoping that guilt will make women pull back and resume bowing and scraping to them.

The Hypocricans have a good share of women who seem to like the “inferior” role in society.  They and their Hypocrican brothers  hate everything about science until they want to use it to prove that the males of all species are dominant over the females.  Their lack of knowledge of science is showing, though.  In many species the female is dominant or at least equal.  In some, the female consumes the male to provide energy for the young. 

Like so much of the Hypocrican propaganda, their view of live is imperfect.  It shows more ignorance than proof of the correctness of their anti-woman position.  But, men’s voices have until now been louder and stronger than those of women. 

What can women do?  We can stop coddling men and stop giving weight to their outdated, misogynistic comments and beliefs.  We can vote the Hypocricans out of office at all levels.  We can stay vigilant and call Hypocrican men and women on  their lies, half-truths, and manufactured science.  When they show up on our television screens, we can change the channel.  The one thing we cannot do is ignore them.  That’s how women’s rights have been nibbled away during these past few years.