THE PARTY OF “ONLY I MATTER”

by Ruth A. Sheets

Every single day, the Republican Party jumps in with either a proposal that attempts to restrict people’s rights or presents plans to cut an essential  program or service that sustains a lot of Americans, even during a pandemic.  At the same time they are refusing funding for the immediate needs of all who are not rich, white, mostly male individuals and corporations.  Why would these destructive actions be their focus?

The Republicans are the "only I matter" Party (OIMP).  They are and have been working to undermine or actually destroy every government program that is working for the American people.  It is unclear to me what their ultimate goal is.  I keep wondering if they could possibly like the world they are trying to create.  The OIMP probably doesn’t even know.  It has been working overtime during COVID19, but has been sowing the seeds for a long time.

- Social Security has been a target since its inception 85 years ago and Medicare/Medicaid since the 1960s.  Currently, the move is to cut the payroll tax which is the funding for these programs.  Senate leader McConnell wants to hold “The Heroes Act” or other legislation hostage to Democratic capitulation to this one.  They may succeed because Democrats actually care what happens to the people of this country and that may be the only way to get the funding.  They’ll hope they can make it up later, but somehow that won’t happen and our seniors, disabled persons, and impoverished people will suffer and the OIMP will rejoice and be glad in it.  They’ll never be held accountable either.

- The State Department which was a critical link between us and the rest of the world is being gutted day by day as is our overseas media, like Voice of America,  which share the American dream of freedom for all with the world.  What message that matters could the OIMP possibly put out there, don’t even try to come to America? 

- The Justice Department has been absorbed by Donald Trump, an ignorant fool whose only claim to fame is that he is a rich white supremacist.  The white supremacist community mounted huge “get out the vote” and smear Crooked Hillary campaigns in 2016.  That, along with Russia and the FBI, combined to make Donald Trump president.  OK, massive misogyny helped too.  In any case, the Justice Department is having a hard time with justice for anyone but the rich, white, male friends of Donald Trump.  AG Barr is seeing to that.  The “Only I Matter” Party has been busy.

- Voting, a basic right, one would have thought, has been in OIMP sights for generations.  Republicans want only folks like themselves to hold office and they wish to pass legislation at the state level that suppresses the votes that aren’t for them, and gerrymanders for even more. 

- Despite evidence of consistent police brutality, the OIMP has given the green light to the various police entities to stomp any protests into the ground or into the jails.  Trump and the OIMP are now sending up their test balloons in Portland, Oregon to see how this will work to benefit the OIMP and Trump, the “law and order president.”  Stop laughing!  He doesn’t really mean it!  Trump means “law and order” to keep people of color in their place.  Using unmarked vehicles and unidentified “officers,” peaceful, legal protesters are being tear gassed, injured with rubber bullets, and dragged off to the federal building in unmarked vans.  My guess is that if the OIMP can get away with this and our pathetic Supreme Court goes along with it, which they probably will,  the OIMP will send their troops all over the country to silence protesters because they’re the “Only I Matter” Party and protesters make them uncomfortable.

- The Senate continues to refuse to provide funding to help states make elections safe for voting in November.  Doing nothing works well for the OIMP.  They are especially pleased with the hours-long lines that Black voters and other people of color will have to experience, hoping those voters will have to get to work or be fired, so can’t wait to vote.  Then, there’s COVID19.    Since none of this will impact the Republicans in power, they don’t care.  It’s the “Only I Matter” Party, remember?

- The Senate has been off far more than it has been on duty due to Mitch McConnell’s complete control of every Republican in that body.  He allowed them to pass a few bills to help the people, but only because their rich white friends and corporate donors got a large slice too, courtesy of the OIMP, and they won’t forget.  Corporate hands are already stretched out for more. 

- The Post Office has also been a major target of the OIMP.  The US Post Office was one of the first  departments to integrate and I think Republicans have resented it.  They have been working to wreck the USPS at least since the middle of the 20^th century.  A bonus for them is that vote-by-mail will be at risk if the post office is compromised.  Hmmm, Just what the “Only I matter” Party ordered.

- The Donald cannot deal with the science of COVID19.  He doesn’t like how he looks in a mask, so can’t/won’t demand that people wear masks to save lives.  His self-centered, misplaced idea of freedom has kept many people from wearing masks in public situations.  Most of those followers are white, generally well-fed and resourced, so at less risk for the virus.  It doesn’t matter that these “freedom-loving” white folks pass the virus to the people who were forced to live and work in environments that make them more susceptible.  Why should they care, they are the “Only I Matter” Party?  

- Republicans are anti-science unless they think it directly impacts them.  Cancer research, OK because I might have cancer someday.  If Science recommends hand-washing, 6-ft. distancing, and wearing masks to protect one another from COVID19, Trump’s response,  I’m not doing that.  There’s no proof.  Science doesn’t know.  5 months ago some health care gurus said we should not wear masks (actually, because there were not enough for front-line workers).  Trump implies “I am not going to because “only I matter” and what works for me right now is what counts.  Although, if I should get COVID19, I expect you to give me the most amazing care, attending me every minute.  Only I matter, you see.”     

Alas, I could carry on with this for additional paragraphs, but I think the idea is clear.  One party, the Republicans are only for themselves and what feels good for them “Only I Matter.”  The other party, the Democrats are critical of the most minute infractions by their members regarding ethics, harassment, racism, and other stated standards, using “we” more than “I,” it should be clear which party will stand by the American people, all the people.  The “only I matter” party has the money, the media, the tricksters, and a lot of the power right now, so their anti-Democrat messages get out.  They have no actual platform beyond anti-abortion and sneaking in more unqualified judges.

A minimal platform is no problem for   Mr. Trump, though.  He and his enablers literally make it up as they go along, lying around 20 times a day in public and on Twitter, more than 20,000 times since his inauguration.  Donald is the cult leader of their party and they will never force him to change.  They love him just the way he is.  I suspect they don’t realize in the “Only I matter” Party, as much as they love The Donald, they don’t matter to him at all.

EVERYBODY OPEN THE SCHOOLS! WHAT?

by Ruth A. Sheets

So, the command has come down from on high.  All schools will open this fall.  And, if they don’t, funds will be CUT from the districts that don’t follow this command (who dare to care about the safety of their students, teachers, and staff)

There are a couple of things to note about that pronouncement.  First, Donald Trump has no right to interfere with the schools’ funding.  His ignorance and arrogance know no bounds. Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Education, knows nothing about education, medicine, or anything else besides money, so her demands are irrelevant and should be dismissed as the hogwash they are.

Once past that nonsense, the problem remains.  What must happen when it is time for students to begin classes this fall? 

I am a teacher and worry about the decisions our school districts must make as to how school will be conducted this year during a pandemic that is not yet under control.  In the spring, we were caught off guard by the out-of-control COVID19 so were not nearly prepared to operate online classes.  Some teachers managed to get lessons going and there were the online reading and math programs, but many of our students didn’t have computer access until the beginning of June while some are still waiting.  Some have computers or rather one computer for 2 or more children.  

A big challenge was making sure the students could figure out how to take full advantage of the resources available.  Some never caught on.  Some of us teachers didn’t get online either.  All over the country teachers and students are trying to figure out how to get complex concepts down in this new, certainly not mastered format. 

Then, there are the children with special needs.  Computer time often does not work for them.  They need the hands-on connection with teachers to learn the required skills.  What happens when they are at home for months without that trained teacher’s attention?    

Over the years, teachers have been called lazy, useless, a waste of good money, and a host of other pejoratives.  I guess one good thing coming from this lock down is that teachers are a bit more appreciated, at least in some quarters.  We may still be seen as glorified free babysitters, but they now realize they need us. 

That need is what is causing Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos to toss out their demands and threats.  Their economy will not be able to reignite without babysitters (child care) for the workers they need.  A killer virus stalks and they whine that the workers don’t have people to watch their kids. 

Trump and DeVos are not interested in the problems the schools have opening every year with obtaining sufficient supplies, properly maintaining old buildings, etc.  They are OK with attempting to destroy the public school system in favor of publicly funded privately operated charter schools which are generally better funded, not more successful.  They just want their economy’s babysitters and their charges back in school.  They don’t actually care about the quality of education the children get or they wouldn’t push vouchers and more charter schools.  Neither program has proven superior to traditional public schools, they just suck taxpayer money into the pockets of rich folks who “say” they can do it better, or rather, cheaper.  They can’t!  The Trumpers just want babysitters.  Now! 

The Trump DeVos team does not care about what students are truly getting from what the government offers because they don’t expect or even want those kids to compete with the privileged white kids in private schools and the wealthiest public school districts.   They want babysitters, and McDonalds workers, hotel housekeepers, farm laborers.  Those are the jobs they want for American workers and they are hoping the public schools (and charters) will provide them.  That way we don’t need immigrants, right?

Now we come to COVID19.  The current president can’t even wear a mask without practically having a heart attack.  He can’t even repeat what scientists know, that masks do help keep the virus from spreading.  He still hangs with the line said once or twice back in February before people knew much about how the virus works.   That was five months ago and Americans have watched family members, friends, front-line workers and others die, 140,000 of us so far.  We have seen stories of people on ventilators.  about 30% die even with ventilator assistance.  No one really knows yet how many children get the virus and whether or not they pass it.  We do know that people over 60 and people of color are at significant risk for becoming infected.  We also know that at this point there are few places in the U.S. where cases of COVID19 are not on the rise.

This does not seem to me and to most Americans, (particularly parents) as a good time to reopen in-person school sessions.  But it looks great to the Trump-DeVos team.  They are so anxious to get parents back to work, they would sacrifice teachers, staff, students, and families, and for what, so Trump can claim a thriving economy?  That sounds pretty messed up to me.         

I love my students and want to be with them more than anything, but I work in a school district where most of our students live in poverty or near poverty.  Many have serious health problems and their families are also at risk.  How will opening in-person schools serve the people here? 

A challenge for me is that as a blind person it has been hard for me to gain access to the online services other teachers are able to bring to their students.  Disabled teachers, like disabled students are generally not considered when schedule changes happen.  Being back in school with my kids would be better for me, but not for everyone else.  So, I use the US Post Office to get materials and books to my students, 7 mailings since March.  How long will that form of connection to my students last if Donald Trump gets his way and takes down the US Post Office?  Who knows? 

So, let’s see, The Trump crew wants schools reopened so he can get the parents back to work and they’ll have their free babysitters.  His team cares nothing for the safety of the school communities.  He wants to put everyone at risk so he can claim a great jobs report and strong economy, IN THE MIDDLE OF A PANDEMIC THAT IS NOT UNDER CONTROL!  Then, there’s the Post Office . . . .    

I am not totally sure what the answer is.   I suspect it will vary from district to district, from state to state and may involve a number of different models.  What I do know is that teachers need to be in the discussions from the beginning as do families and other members of the community like doctors, nurses, and other health care persons.  COVID19 is no joke as some like to believe.  People are dying or have permanent physical impairments due to the virus.  Unless a whole range of safety measures are put in place, I don't see how schools can open  no matter how much I and the other teachers would like to be back physically with our kids.  I also don't see the money flowing from Congress toward districts to help us with those safety measures. 

It is truly a tragedy that Trump & Co. had no clue and could not get a handle on what was needed for dealing with COVID19.  We will all be paying for that lack of vision for years to come.  I just don’t want our children, families, teachers, and staff to pay for it unnecessarily with our lives.

SAFE VOTING, A RIGHT, NOT A GAME

by Ruth A. Sheets

I, along with many other Americans, believe our most important right as citizens, behind life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, is the right to vote.  It appears there are quite a few elected representatives at all levels who are not among the right to vote believers.  Unfortunately, the unbelievers are mostly Republicans.  Why is everyone’s right to vote not critical for them?  Well, of course, they don’t want any but superior people like themselves, to hold office.  And, who are those superior people, rich, white, straight, Christian/Jewish, Republican men, with some submissive go-along women.  They simply don’t care about any of the rest of us unless they can use us as pawns in their political games. 

OK, REPUBLICANS DON'T CARE.  That is my starting point.  They crouch to listen to their cult leader who is scared of everything and everyone.  He “knows” that voting is the way to control what happens in America and he fears he might lose.  The way to keep that from happening is to shut as many people as possible out of the voting process, and encourage would-be voters to believe voter suppression is necessary to stop voter fraud, by Democrats and people of color.  Voter fraud of any kind is extremely rare and is usually done by mistake or misunderstanding, but that explanation does not fit with Republican talking points, so is neatly ignored for the sake of the lie. 

Republicans have gotten especially good at voter suppression over the years.  They even convinced the Supreme Court a few years back that some of the most racist, sexist, xenophobic districts in America are anxious to have everyone vote.  Of course this was a lie, as the Court knew very well, but hey, scared privileged white men and their allies can be found everywhere, even on our highest court. 

The very day the decision came down that cancelled out the most important sections of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, those districts began their work to make voting nearly impossible for large portions of their population.  Some of their “best” practices include:

-   Voter I.D. laws which allow a gun license and not a college I.D.,

- birth certificates required for people who have been voting for many decades (many of those certificates lost in fires or because of race and poverty, never existed),

- matching signatures for identical loops and swerves in letter formation in signatures decades apart

- DMV cards and other forms of I.D. that cost more than the poor can afford,

-  purging voter rolls of people who haven’t voted in a couple of elections (probably because of insane work schedules),

- purging voters with identical names to someone else on the rolls,

- refusing to enfranchise people who have served their time in prison even when the people of the state voted to enfranchise them (Florida)

It is predominantly people of color, older citizens, and younger people just getting started as voters who are the targets, the victims.  Who were meant to be least impacted, rich, white, privileged, men and women, of course.  These are the folks Republicans are counting on to keep them in power indefinitely. 

Another major type of voter suppression is gerrymandering.  This is slightly different because it doesn’t keep people from voting, it just negates the votes of Democrats who are forced into districts that have been cleverly shaped and contorted to make sure Republicans will always win there.  Republicans have  taken  jerrymandering to new heights of greed and power-mongering, giving them advantages no party should have in a democracy. 

Democrats have often tried valiantly to fight this crippling assault on American democracy, but it is exceedingly hard.  Once a thing is done, it’s hard to undo, and already, a lot of damage has been done.  Those who have not been eliminated from voting don’t think much about the others because it isn’t their problem.  The in-group of voters smugly think, “I did all the right things.  If they had done the right things too or tried harder, they’d have no trouble either.  All they have to do is . . ., but they’re just too lazy.”  We rarely think beyond that because life is complicated, busy, and we only vote a couple of times a year.  It is not quite often enough to make it a habit.  We also have an exaggerated sense of our having done things “the right way.”  A lot of that “right way” comes from privilege, luck, money, and other critical factors not available to everyone.  The right to vote should not be dependent on any of those factors, just that a person is a citizen of the United States.   

On top of the real and manufactured problems with elections, COVID19 has “gummed up the works” even further.  It has made it unsafe for anyone to vote in person right now. 

There is a way to make this less of a problem.  That is vote by mail.  Several states already use this as their means of voting all the time.  Others are flirting with the idea.  Some states are going for no-excuse absentee ballots.  Others are looking at a combination of in-person voting and vote by mail.  Some states are looking at same as usual. 

Some states like Georgia found a way during their primary to put the least experienced poll workers and the non-functioning machines in Black communities, causing extremely long lines and wait times.  A few wealthy white areas got to taste the long line approach to voting that is a regular part of Election Day in minority communities.  They didn’t like it much, but after their complaints, they are certain it will be fixed by November.  Those in the Black communities can never be sure of such correction.  Other state primaries experienced similar challenges, also mostly in Black communities.

 

OK Republicans!  We all deserve the right to vote and need safe elections (yes, even for your constituents).  The states need the funds to do that, and you know it.  But, you guys seem to be oblivious to the voice of the people. 

The privileged got rather safe elections,  mostly by mail during the pandemic.  Fancy that!  It’s clear the COVID19 crisis is having and will continue to have a major impact on our democracy.  Therefore, no one should have to choose between their health and voting.   Unless Congress responds, the primaries will be a preview of what’s to come in November.  That is inexcusable and a good reason that those in the Senate who don’t demand a floor vote on funds for safe voting and support for the US Post Office, and relief for the worst problems of COVID19 should be defeated this fall. 

I get it that REPUBLICANS DON'T CARE, but you could learn to care.  Even grown men can learn new things.  You all learned to love and bow down to a bigoted, womanizing, homophobic, transphobic, money-grubbing, child-man, dictator wannabe, so you can learn to care about the American people and our need for properly funded safe elections in November.

The next few weeks will inform the American people of how much REPUBLICANS DON’T CARE about them.  I am just hoping Democrats will jump in and take advantage of Republican lack of empathy and stand with and elect candidates who actually do care what happens to people other than themselves, who won’t see voting as a game they can only win by keeping everyone else off the field.  

A NEW HERO?

by Ruth A. Sheets

Heroes often have songs and poems written to honor them.  Sometimes they get statues and other works of art, or at least that’s how the old heroes were honored.  You could tell a lot about a community or nation by the heroes they “worshipped.”  Someone coming from another country to learn about the American people, until recently, would have thought the only heroes we had were white and male, soldiers or statesmen.  And they might have been surprised to note that traitors against the United States were held up as heroes even in the Capitol in Washington, DC.  Women and people of color just couldn’t make the cut.   

Something is changing, perhaps a bit, but we won’t see if that change has any staying power for a while.  Statues of Confederate Soldiers are being taken down and people are considering whom to replace them with.  White men are angry because they might have to look at people not like themselves on plinths around America.  They might start to imagine that those people are heroes?  How terrible for them!        

Well, to ease their minds a bit, there is a white man who is bucking for hero status.  His name, John Roberts, his job, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.  He has some things in common with those old white heroes.  He is attractive enough and had an Ivy League education, which of course, makes him the perfect guy to be an American hero.  He is not a military guy, but so what.  The Ivy League bestows upon one a certain halo-esque demeanor that can supersede heroics in battle. 

Generally one has to have done something to earn heroship.  Well, John Roberts with his super intelligence has done an amazing job chiseling away at the rights of Americans while even Supreme Court scholars quibble only a bit.  He tosses in a few surprises here and there to quell, at least temporarily, the people who care about rights.  For example, he let the Affordable Care Act stand a few years back because he claimed it had a tax provision in it.  Instead of saying the ACA (Obamacare) was legal since Congress passed it and it went against no law, he upheld it on the grounds that Congress had the right to levy taxes.  That, of course, means a whole lot of rich white folks will keep trying to bring the ACA down even though it is insuring millions of people.  Since the ACA is still mostly in place, I suppose that was a win.

Roberts convinced white Americans that corporations are persons and money is speech so they can significantly increase their financial meddling in our elections.  He made it sound like since corporations employ persons it is the same as being a person.  Then, saying money is speech let everyone know that the rich, like himself are just so much more worthy than the rest of us.  And, put your “speech” in the right place and you don’t even have to pay taxes on it.  Well done!  A hero is born! 

Voting rights removal has been a pet project of this would-be hero.  He decided that the most politically racist counties in the United States had come such a lung way that they would no longer have to report and get prior approval for changes in their voting procedures as required by the 1965 Voting Rights Act.  That was a lie, but so what.  It only would affect a few people, right?  The white governments of those former Confederate states went to town after that one, within 24 hours!  They loved their Chief Justice so much they promptly instituted a series of voting changes that disenfranchised millions of people, mostly Black, Latinx, poor, old, and young citizens.  They claimed it was because of voter fraud, which even they knew didn’t exist.  Roberts is now a hero to the Republicans who can take office because their opponents won’t be able to afford to vote. 

Our Chief Justice and the crew couldn’t stop there.  In a pandemic, his court said it was OK for states to deny write-in votes just because a person was worried they might become infected with COVID 19 if they voted in person.  Who would think that’s a good idea?  Why, Johnny, naturally.

Roberts and the Court let a couple of things slip through, like same-sex marriage and denying employers the right to discriminate against LGBT persons. 

To make up a bit for that “lapse,” the Court allowed businesses to refuse service to LGBTQ persons and employers to deny birth control services to female workers, both on religious grounds.  To soothe the Muslim and immigrant haters, Roberts’s Court let stand, bans on Muslims entering the United States and permitted concentration camp-like facilities for asylum-seekers. 

Mr. Roberts must truly despise women because he has worked hard to limit women’s right to choose.  A religious employer now has more rights than his female employees in some areas.  A case ruled on recently allowed abortion clinics to remain open in Louisiana only because the case was identical to one in Texas from 5 years ago.  The original ruling said the whole premise of the case was unconstitutional and he, John Roberts didn’t want to overturn a decision (He didn’t write the report, but his thinking was all over it.)  He even gave a road map for future suits explaining just what they would have to do to get the Court to side with them to close those horrible clinics.  Put those women in their place.  Pretty slimy, but if you’re not white, rich, and male, that’s what you get from Mr. Roberts, hero.

Donald Trump came into office in 2017.  He didn’t get elected by popular vote as everyone but the folks that Mr. Roberts is trying to please knows well.  There have been concerns, OK, definite knowledge  that Donald Trump believes he is above the law.  As the “Teflon Don,” he waltzes through his presidency, consorting with criminals, refusing to divest from his businesses as the Constitution demands, extorting Ukraine, obstructing justice, threatening the media, pardoning criminals who are his friends/supporters, firing qualified people who don’t agree with him, and generally running a corrupt show. 

You might imagine that John Roberts, scholar in the law, would have something to say about this, and you’d be right.  In two rulings from the bench this past week, which, of course, he wrote, he stated that the president is not above the law.  He then proved otherwise by the way he couched his pronouncement in clever terms that basically said, Donald Trump’s financial records could only be requested if a lower court agreed that Congress had a good enough reason for asking (I guess the Constitution and executive oversight aren’t good enough reasons).  Then he said a grand jury in New York could request them too, but of course, again, grand jury materials are secret.  See how neatly that was done?  It looks on the surface like Chief Roberts says Trump is not above the law, then carefully puts Congress under the lower courts even though Congress is elected and the courts officials (stacked with right-wing partisans) are not.  He essentially told us that we the people have no right to know what Donald Trump, the President is up to.  (Trump even got an extension on his tax return for this year which means we won’t see that before the election either.)

That was really well-done Mr. Chief Justice, would-be hero.  Your intelligence has enabled you to cover for a criminal while your supporters  are claiming hero status for you because you stated what is already in the Constitution, that Mr. Trump is not above the law.  You just missed crossing the line between truth and a lie, but you are right on it, and you know it.  I would love to have listened in on the discussion among yourself, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh on these decisions. What did you tell them to get them on board.  I bet you showed your proteges just how smart you are and how neatly you got around legitimate requests for information, making it nearly impossible to obtain the requested documents.  Pretty clever, Mr. Chief Justice!    

I can’t help but wonder what you truly believe.  Or, like so many Republicans and conservatives these, days, have you lost any principles you may once have had?  Are you so enamored with power that you  would wield it against those least able to defend themselves, you know, the poor, people desperate for asylum, women, children? Then you give advantages to those who already have more advantages than anyone has a right to.   What do you really believe about the law?  Who is it for? 

I know in some future time, a tome will come out describing your life and your tenure on the Court.  It will make you look like a hero because that is what a lot of those books do.  And, I suspect to scared white men, mostly in the South and huge corporations, you are a hero, but to the rest of us, you are just another white guy who places himself in the center and rules in ways that will work best for people like him.  I would have thought working with the amazing women who sit on the Court would have helped expand your thinking to embrace more people as worthy of rights, but alas, that does not seem to have happened.  The way you dismiss the needs and rights of women and others, while claiming impartiality,  is monstrous.  But, you’ll carry on because that is what white men do even in the face of overwhelming evidence of your biases. 

If you really want to be a hero, have a heroic legacy, start doing heroic things.  Use that, what I have been told is remarkable intelligence to do good.   You could really help make this country great as your president says, but you could really mean it.

OPEN LETTER TO POLLUTERS AND THEIR EPA ENABLERS

by Ruth A. Sheets

Dear Men,

Throughout our history, companies, then corporations have destroyed, polluted, then left the mess they made for someone else to clean up, usually the American taxpayers who only as an aside benefited from whatever that company/corporation was up to.  Clear cut whole mountainsides, leaving the bare earth open to the elements, causing landslides, floods, and an ugly landscape.  Once you have seen the results, you can’t forget.

Mining entities dug into the ground for coal and minerals for profit, but often left the torn-up land and poorly maintained areas to do further damage after the original miners left:  floods, pollution from slag heaps, broken dams, and more. 

Sometimes the miners and loggers were paid well, but there was an enormous cost to future generations from their work because they were allowed to  destroy nearly unchecked with no provision for that future.

Plants of all sorts churned out the products we needed and were taught to need while our air became unbreathable and our water burned.  By 1970 most people had had enough.  They were able to force Richard Nixon to go along with anti-pollution legislation and the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  What brought the economy down in the 1970s was not the new move toward real regulation.  It was our over dependence on oil from the Middle East and the limiting of that oil.  We worked through that problem by driving smaller cars that got better gas mileage.  Work hours were changed, many people tried to use less electricity, and people began working together to get through.  And, a lot of work began on Solar energy.  I can’t help but wonder what our planet would be like now if that effort had continued at the same or greater rate.  We’d be the world’s leader in all areas of renewable energy. 

Well, then came Ronald Reagan. Saint Ronnie was being pushed by you polluters to go back to more polluting.  He encouraged car makers to go back to even bigger, heavier automobiles than before and gave all kinds of tax incentives to buy trucks for work when a car would have done better.  He removed the solar panels from the roof of the white house, a perfect symbol of his approval of polluters.  “Morning in America” turned out to be our path back into the world of pollution, or at least as much as the EPA would allow.  That agency saved us a little from what could have been an even bigger and sooner disaster than we are now, and will be facing in the near future.

Finally, we have Donald Trump.  Mr. Trump is certainly not bright when it comes to business (bankrupted 6 times) or government (He had no clue what was going on with COVID19 and still doesn’t).  I believe Mr. Trump was advised to select ignorant people for all appointed positions in our government and did so with full compliance of Republicans and some Democrats in the Senate.  They agreed to approve former lobbyists for positions in agencies that oversee the corporations they previously served.  That includes you at the EPA.  The appointees have all stepped up to get rid of or lessen regulations in the areas they are supervising, for their old buddies, of course, and you polluters are thrilled!  More pollution, no problem.  Besides, you guys will not have to breathe or drink it.  That’s for Black people, other people of color, and poor people in whose neighborhoods you polluters do your work.  The intense ignorance of you all in charge at the EPA permits polluters to pretend you don’t know the earth is a single entity and that what happens in one place impacts the rest too. 

What does it say about you directors of regulating agencies that you are not bothered by the fact that it is poor folks and people of color who are most harmed by your pollution?  Does it mean a major hiring criterion for lobbyists in your corporation  is lack of empathy?  It is clearly the most important factor for positions in Trump’s administration.  No empathy, perfect Trump man!  Do you ever think about the oath you appointees swore to protect and defend the Constitution?  How much does an oath mean to someone without empathy?  What about religious conviction?  This administration plays to the evangelical right, who claim to be so holy.  How is harming the least able to defend themselves a holy act?

So, polluters and EPA enablers, here's an example of what you are agreeing to.  Every year, exposure to PM 2.5 causes tens of thousands of premature deaths in America. In 2017 alone, it was attributed to 85,000 deaths.  Are you OK with that or will you try to blame those deaths on something else as nearly all Republicans and conservatives do?  EPA has proposed to retain the outdated standard for particulate pollution, set nearly a decade ago, despite the fact that the agency’s updated policy assessment demonstrates that this standard is inadequate to protect public health.  Will the updated standard be put into place, not on Trump’s watch, despite consistent scientific evidence that particulate pollution is linked to hospital admissions, emergency room visits, as well as early death due to lung disease, heart attacks, strokes, asthma and cancer.  And having air pollution related heart and lung disease increases the  risk of death from COVID19.   

Oh! That word "scientific!"  It really does get in the way doesn’t it!  You guys don’t like “science” do you, that is unless it is making more money for you?  In this case, you won’t be paying for the hospitals and medical procedures, so those costs don’t impact your bottom line, so they aren’t your problem, right?

You polluters clearly believe none of the  pollution your corporations produce will affect you.  You won’t get the virus or if you do, it won’t be so bad because you haven’t been exposed to your own pollution too much, and of course, you are privileged white guys who have mostly had the best of everything, unlike those living under the pall of your air and water pollution.  Lucky you!

We the people are fed up with your smug superiority that is only a product of your race, money, and your threat that you’ll take away the “good jobs.”  First of all, a job that leads to black lung disease and other severe lung conditions is not a good job.  A job that causes lead poisoning in children is not a good job.  A job that creates automobiles that will pollute and dump more greenhouse gasses into an already overloaded atmosphere is not a good job.  And, a man who works to increase pollution in neighborhoods he will never see to protect corporations who care nothing for the people, negatively impacted by its industry is not doing a good job.

WHEN OUR GOVERNMENT DOESN’T CARE

by Ruth A. Sheets

I am one of those strange folks who has been studying American history since childhood.  I was beyond excited when I got to hear John F. Kennedy speak near my home and see him pass by in his open car during his 1960 presidential campaign.  Then, in 5th grade, I read an historical fiction book called Silver for General Washington by Enid Meadowcroft which described the adventures of 2 kids who helped Washington’s army at Valley Forge, and my parents sent me at summer camp an American history workbook.  I was hooked.  For years, my nearly exclusive reading was history, biography, and historical fiction.  I have since expanded my reading significantly, but still regularly turn to these.

All of that is to say that I had what is probably a warped sense of what this nation is and the role of our government.  I believed all the parts of the government were set up to help the American people.  Perhaps that was the intent at the beginning, but something changed. 

As a kid, I knew a little about slavery and understood it was horrible, but did not come close to appreciating just how horrible.  I also didn’t understand until high school how much involvement the government had in maintaining slavery.  My faith in our government and elected officials began to tarnish.  What made our government care so little about the worth of enslaved persons as human beings and so much about their financial value?

Then, there was the War in Vietnam.  At first I thought it was a good thing, or must be because our president supported it and Congress voted to pay for it, and weren’t we helping those people?  It took keeping a month-long “diary” ( of daily events in the war (February 1968) to turn me against the war.  I hope that is what our 9^th grade Civics teacher had in mind.  Where was Congress when by this point, many people in our government knew it as a useless war?  Did they care so little for the thousands who died fighting it? 

It wasn’t until after college that I learned about the Japanese-American “internment” during WWII and the massacres of Black Americans in Tulsa, OK and other cities and that our government seems to have fully supported both.  Is the reason the teaching of these events was neglected because people came to care and were ashamed of them?  Nah!

I still can’t imagine how I had missed these huge events in all the reading I had done.  I had read about Reconstruction and the Klan, but those books ended in 1876 before things got really bad.  They mentioned lynching but almost as an aside.  I had read about WWII but not that over 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry, of all ages, were removed from the west coast to concentration camps in some of the worst environments America has to offer.  There are no words to express how I felt and still feel about such inhumanities and the governmental consent and dismissal of objections that went along with them.

Like most Americans, instead of getting the real story, I got a child’s version of Rosa Parks, the Little Rock Nine, the Sit-ins, Freedom Riders, and more.  I eventually learned of the sheer level of violence attached to all these events by racists.  In only a few cases did the Federal government step in to protect its Black citizens and, unfortunately, probably not because they cared.  Again, my faith in Congress, the Presidency, and the courts slipped significantly.  It did go up a bit though,  during Watergate when the House was in the act of impeaching Nixon, forcing him to resign.  Did Republicans in Congress care that Nixon had broken our trust or did they just want to get over it and move on to their next act?

  

A truly sad thing for me in 2020 as a citizen who has studied American history diligently since I was 10, is that the government I once thought cared about this nation really doesn't, or rather, right now, the Republicans and a few Democrats don’t. 

A group of people who need to know nothing or care about anything but their partisanship (the Electoral College) elected a man who can’t care for anyone but himself and what works for him, and that was known before the election.  And, congressional Republicans can’t or won’t effectively act for the people in the face of a pandemic.  They won’t seriously address the systemic racism that has been outed by recent videos of police abuses toward the Black community.  In short, Senate Republicans get nothing done beyond approving totally inappropriate judges for our court system (about 200 so far), judges who are nearly guaranteed to deny rights to all but rich, white, straight, mostly Christian men (oh, and corporations).  These events have brought us to a critical place of uncaring.  Getting as many inappropriate judges in place is more important than the lives of Americans, mostly Americans of color.  We’ve seen this act before. 

It seems power and money are the first things Republican representatives in Congress think of.  The second is how much of both they can get from the government for themselves, their friends, and already rich allies.  I am certain that is not what the founders had in mind, you know, the founders that Republicans and conservatives claim to revere.  The truth is they revere only their whiteness and wealth, not their hope that they could create a nation that was better than what came before and could keep getting better. 

Republicans in Congress have decided they will do as little as possible to actually help anyone but the rich whom they think are the ones who keep the economy going.  They're not!  They think white is right and whatever happens to Black, Latinx, or poor Americans is their own fault and they deserve what they get.  They won't say that aloud, but their actions as members of Congress shout it to the heavens. 

Congressional Republicans despise (possibly fear) women, even the Republican women in Congress hate women and believe they are in competition for the few available places for strong but totally feminine women, like themselves, of course.  However, in order to keep those spots, they believe they have to do whatever the men in their world demand and they do, rarely challenging anything McConnell or McCarthy  say or do.  Oh yes, they also assist those men to deny women their rights as often as demanded.  As good Republicans, they must demonstrate their uncaring for the women on the front line of stopping the pandemic.

congressional Republicans also despise LGBTQ persons and despite seeing how these people are being treated in our society, have done nothing to protect them.  Why?  They don't care.  I suspect fear is part of it too.  The mass of Republicans can't be bothered.  They don’t see LGBTQ persons as having any real power, so they aren't on the radar.  Republicans have adopted the idea that God wants them to discriminate against LGBTQ persons and they are sure they are up to the task.

   

On Monday, June 15, 2020, the Supreme Court ruled that LGBTQ+ people are protected in the workplace by federal discrimination laws. This landmark ruling is a major win, but not to Republicans.  They saw this as a defeat for Donald Trump and therefore for themselves.  What! 

Something is really wrong here.  Personal defeats for Mr. Trump are therefore defeats for Republicans in general?  That is crazy!  How is assuring rights to work unharrassed for Americans a defeat?  How is starting the process of dismantling systemic racism by controlling police actions a defeat?  How is getting protective gear for front-line workers in a pandemic a defeat?   How is giving people brought to this country as children the right to stay here and continue contributing to this nation a defeat?  So, the man who cares only about what makes him look good decides what is a defeat?   

For Republicans, if those are defeats, what does a victory look like and who will have to suffer for it?