OPEN LETTER TO SENATOR PAT TOOMEY

by Ruth A. Sheets

I received a reply to a petition I had signed encouraging senators to vote for the 2 voting rights bills last week.  I was pretty sure what I would read.  It is the same old garbage Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania put out all last year.  His staff changed words very slightly to add that the voting bills had come up 5 times, and mention that he proudly voted against the voting rights bills last week.  He still refers to those bills as S1.  That identification has not been used for quite some time. 

Now, we are pretty sure that Republicans were subtly threatened to stay in lock step with what Mitch McConnell and Donald Trump wanted them to do, and they went along.  That means Republicans do not want voting reform and are OK with voter suppression and its expansion. 

 How do I know?  Mr. Toomey starts out with how well we as a nation have “overcome over 200 years of challenges grave and small, including transitions in party rule, the despicable institution of slavery, civil war, ambiguous election results, and racial segregation,” issues he has shown no interest in, previous to his attempt to address voting rights.  He continued, “Last year, when a sitting president undermined the election results, the strength of our institutions—including our state-controlled election systems—enabled the republic to weather another test.”  That last part is his sort of acknowledgement that our nation got through another small challenge which he doesn’t admit has not yet been put to rest.  He couldn’t even mention Trump’s name. 

 If Mr. Toomey had just stopped there he might have been seen as having some integrity.  But, he didn’t.  He blamed Democrats for “seeking to distort the record in order to pass a federal takeover of elections that would undermine the very rights they claim to protect.”  What!  Nothing that follows this statement makes any sense to someone who thinks logically. (see the letter below)

 There must always be fearmongering in every statement Republicans make against Democrats.  It is not enough to say, “I don’t believe we need voter rights because Republicans in the states should be able to shape the vote any way they choose to,” (the truth), he has to claim the voting rights bills are a “Federal takeover of elections” (a lie).  He then tossed in a few more Republican talking points, also not true).  He implies that it was a righteous thing to oppose any and all voter rights bills brought to the Senate by Democrats, without debate, of course, so Republicans never had to explain their opposition in public.

 Toomey still harps on the “For the People Act “ (S. 1), which has been replaced more than once since it was being considered last year.  He claims “it would politicize the currently balanced Federal Election Commission, suppress speech in ways even the ACLU opposes” (say what!), “provide public financing to political campaigns” (as opposed to letting huge corporations and very rich folks buy candidates), “and gut state voter ID laws” (yes, the ones that accept IDs that are costly and hard to get for disadvantaged voters).

 Instead of doing due dilligence and actually learning about the voting bills (Freedom to Vote and John Lewis Voting Advancement Act), he claims these bills would empower federal bureaucrats with sweeping authority to oversee election law changes in every state.  In reality, the bills only call for Federal oversight if there are activities going on in a state that are unconstitutional.  Of course, Mr. Toomey does not have to defend his position because he, like all Republicans these days doesn’t think he needs to explain, just toss it out there and hope that some of the lies and misinformation stick.  Unfortunately, some of it always does because it sounds so frightening, a takeover of our elections by those unamerican Democrats.

 He proudly poked out his chest in gratitude to the Republicans who just saved our democracy from those horrible Democrats who would have “stolen your votes” or some such nonsense.  It’s always nonsense, but alas, some uninformed people believe it.

 A new Republican talking point is that more Black people have voted than ever before in the last 5 of 6 elections.  How is that even a point?  It is supposed to counter the truth that the voter suppression laws newly minted in the states are suppressing “the Black vote,” as well as the votes of other vulnerable populations.  That questionable statistic of increased Black voter participation proves there is no suppression, right?  Wrong!  It proves nothing except that some more Black Americans are voting.

 Last week, Mitch McConnell said out  loud what Republicans like Pat Toomey believe but can’t quite articulate.  “Black people vote at the same percentages as Americans.”  What did he mean?  He meant exactly what he said.  All the racism one can imagine was present in that comment.  If Black people aren’t really Americans, it doesn’t matter if their votes are suppressed, so let the suppression continue, or at least that is what Republican inaction regarding voting rights would do.    

 Mr. Toomey wraps up his note to me with a pat on his own back, undeserved, but nonetheless there.  He warns all of us who really believe that all American citizens should have the right to vote with few if any obstacles, “Democrats continue to undermine confidence in the fairness of our elections in order to pass their liberal agenda. Now, it is past time for Democrats to stop their partisan charade.”  Yep, another Republican blames Democrats for doing exactly what the Republicans themselves are doing and what the Democrats are clearly not doing.  I do wonder if all Republican senators went to a special class to learn how to do “1984” with a straight face, new-speaking at every opportunity. 

 He then thanked me for my correspondence and offered his assistance.  OK, Sen. Toomey, if you really want to assist me and the people of our state, I have a suggestion.  Open your eyes and see that we have a state legislature that has worked really hard since the 2020 election to dismiss the votes of Democratic voters and to make it harder to vote.  The voting rights bills that you so easily dismissed would have stopped that as well as the Republican groups who are demanding personal information about Democratic voters for purposes they have not made clear.  I am grateful we still have a Democratic governor or we would be voter suppressed just like Texas, Georgia, Florida, and Mississippi.  That is not an accident.  We sometimes hear Pennsylvania referred to as “Philadelphia and Pittsburgh with Alabama in between.  Well, Mr. Toomey, I don’t want Pennsylvania to be Alabama with its state-approved racism and dismissal of the rights of so many of its citizens.  We need to do better and so do you.

Sincerely, Ruth A. Sheets, a constituent

 

WHO ARE YOU PROTECTING?

By Ruth A. Sheets

A recent move in conservative Republican legislatures trying to control education is the so-called “Woke laws.”  Florida Republican, mostly white legislators, and similar elected bodies in Republican states, want to have complete control over what teachers teach and they do not want teachers to teach about the difficult parts of American history, you know, those parts where white men committed atrocities against people of color.  Supposedly, their reason is that learning about it will negatively impact their kids, causing all kinds of mental illness.   

It is always distressing to me as a retired teacher that so many white men and some white women are scared of the truth.  They will make up all kinds of conspiracy theories and ridiculous explanations for why they go along with really stupid ideas, and can't acknowledge that our shared history has not always been pretty or flattering to white America.  Power corrupts people and it also makes them scared of people they don't know and whom they have been programmed to think are going to infringe on their entitlements even though they won't say the word entitlement in public or even aloud to themselves. 

The Republicans in the Florida Legislature are terrified because there is no future for them and their outdated ideas.  Climate change (global warming) is closing in on Florida.  People of color are gaining rights even if they have to take them.  Immigrants don't want to be treated like dirt or as only worthy of earning slave wages.  Women are ignoring male supremacy, despite male laws for forced-birth.  Police are being called out on their violence and murder of unarmed civilians, and so much more.  Instead of working to positively address these critical issues, what conservative white folks in power are doing is grabbing onto a nonsense word like "woke" to do what they think will stir up people like them to fight, distracting them from paying attention to the real problems. 

"Woke," as conservatives have come to see it means whatever programs and actions Liberals and progressives are for.  What are liberals/progressives for?  They want people to become aware of injustices done to fellow Americans and to stop anyone who claims power they don't deserve from doing more harm than has already been done.  Liberals and progressives generally believe people want equity in all areas of life. 

The scared legislators must believe their children are pathetic, weak souls who can't bear to hear the truth. Their kids could learn the truth and to work through it and make it so such awful events won't happen again.  Good teachers help kids do that.  If those white legislators actually took time to think about it, they would see that what they are really saying is that the children of color who had to endure those moments of history:  massacres, lynchings, trails of tears, internment, etc. and survived are far stronger than their own children.  I believe they are selling their kids short, probably just as they themselves were sold short when growing up, not being taught and learning our full history. 

All teachers who care about their students, even the pathetic white ones, should teach the truth no matter what the Florida or other Republican legislatures say.  Otherwise, they are betraying their students who deserve to know the truth. 

Hey white legislators, white students will not suddenly become depressed incompetents because of learning the truth.  Besides, it might empower them to work for a better nation and world.  Oh wait, that's the problem isn’t it, what you white legislators don't want.  You are comfortable with things just as they are or rather were back in some nebulous past when White ruled absolutely.  Too bad Florida, that world, if it ever really existed is gone and most of us want to be sure it never returns. 

You conservative legislators would do better for your kids to think about their real future and stopping global warming and planning for greener jobs.  I know, that is harder than promoting hate and fear, but the results will be far better for your kids, and actually, for you too.

Leave teachers to do their jobs.  Give them the resources and support they need, then stay out of it unless you plan to help:  volunteer tutoring with struggling students in your child’s school, checking with teachers to see what they actually need, then getting it for them, learning about the more challenging parts of US history so you can work to see there is more equity in our society, etc.  Banning books, dictating curricula based on your own personal biases and fears, and passing “anti-woke” laws are a waste of your time and ours and help no one, not even your children.

THOUGHTS ON JANUARY 6TH

 by Ruth A. Sheets 

Happy New Year!  I remember beginning 2021 with great hope that 2021 would see the end of COVID-19 (it hasn’t) and that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris would bring some strong positive changes to our nation (they have).  I also hoped climate change AKA global warming would become the top priority it should be (it hasn’t but some small movement is happening).

I knew Donald Trump could not let go of power and was scheming to keep Biden/Harris from taking office.  I had no idea his obsession with power would lead him to incite an insurrection.  That horrific event unfolded in front of the nation on TV, radio, and social media.  I had known in the past that rioting sometimes happened when poor, disenfranchised people had given up hope that their lives would improve and that they would finally be treated like full citizens of this country, but not a riot by privileged white folks. 

Trump’s supporters are not disenfranchised, though some are poor.  Most are white and have the privileges that provides.  Despite this, Mr. Trump and his entourage had convinced a significant number of them that they are owed something and had the right to claim it by whatever means necessary.  In addition, Democrats in general and minorities in particular had cheated Mr. Trump of the presidency and his followers had the right to take it back for him.

As a former teacher, I can’t help but wonder why the teachers of the insurgents hadn’t gotten them to understand how our government works.  When a fair election is held (as the 2020 election was), the actually elected president and vice-president would assume their positions at the head of our government. 

Where is critical thinking among the Trump supporters?  How is it they would believe a man who lied more than 30,000 times in public in the four years of his presidency over the thousands of Republican and Democratic election officials throughout the country who had certified the election for Biden/Harris? 

I remember reading that if a person has been entitled and given all kinds of advantages, equality seems to them like oppression.  I think that is what is happening here.  Trump and his entourage are tapping into the deep fear among some white folks that somehow they will lose their advantages which, of course, they don’t see as advantages, but rights.  They are so used to everything being a competition where someone wins which means the rest have to lose.  They have no concept of a win-win scenario where everyone can win.  People of color can obtain full citizenship without causing white Americans to be less than full citizens.  Too many of the Trump supporters think that somehow they have the right to become millionaires because that is their destiny, so taxing millionaires and billionaires at fair rates might cause them to lose some of their “hard-won” money. 

I have been pondering this for a long time.  How did such a large segment of our population come to be so fearful of everyone and everything that they don’t fully know?  I believe it is largely because over time there has been very little accountability for this group’s behavior.  There has always been double standards for the ways white people and people of color have been treated in our country.  From the very beginning, white individuals and groups have perpetrated violence against those they don’t like or trust.  Rarely have they been held responsible.  In fact, they have often been encouraged. 

Even though most white people in the South, for example didn’t own slaves, they saw slavery as their right.  Most white people didn’t wreck the homes of Black people moving into their neighborhoods, but they saw it as their right if they had chosen too because “those people didn’t belong here in our neighborhood anyway.”  When Chinese-owned businesses were destroyed, it was often seen as just the way things were and “if those people didn’t like it they should go back where they came from.”  Rarely was anyone even charged for these crimes.  Lynchings were often public events, family fare.  If anyone questioned the behavior, they too could be targeted no matter their color.  Few spoke up against the US Government’s imprisonment of Japanese-Americans during WWII.  It is rare for charges to be brought against workers at detention centers who abuse, even kill the immigrants imprisoned there.

The insurrection, as I see it, is an outgrowth of irresponsibility.  The media covered Trump as though he were worthy of attention beyond anything he had done.  All he had to do was read a script on the teleprompter and he was “acting presidential.”  The media when he ran for election covered him and his antics many times more than Hillary Clinton who actually deserved quality coverage because she had experience and plans to help the people of this country, while Trump had neither.

Trump was given the OK to speak outside the White House on January 6, 2021, another speech filled with lies and insults of people he didn’t like.  He claimed there was so much fraud in 6 of the states that he actually won the election.  His speech has been replayed in part and whole during the past year, so anyone who pays attention knows what he told his most rabid supporters. 

Trump and his cronies had planned a lot of what happened following his speech.  The goal, stop the formal electoral college count no matter how.  (OK, it is just another proof that the electoral college needs to be gone, but that is an aside.)

The insurrection began at the Capitol.  It went on more than 3 hours before Donald Trump, President of the United States sort of called it off.  By then, 5 people were dead, the Capitol, our Capitol was trashed and pooped on by people who carried Confederate flags, wore Nazi symbols, and used American flags to assault police officers.  They also terrorized our elected leaders.  No one was arrested and taken to prison at the time, the claim, the police were overwhelmed.  The FBI and others are still sort of looking for additional participants.  The accountability is still lacking, a year later.  The most serious sentence so far, just over 5 years for assaulting a police officer.

I can’t help but wonder how things would have been different had those who attacked our Capitol been Black or other people of color.  I suspect there would have been many left dead on the floor.  That was one of my first thoughts even as the attack was going on.  That’s because racism is really alive and very healthy in our nation as it has always been.  Events of this past year make that quite clear. 

- A white man killed 2 men and injured another at a protest he had no business being at and was found not-guilty.   

- School boards all over this country are trying to reinstate the old practice of white-washing American history so fragile little white kids won’t be upset by the appalling actions of people who could have been their ancestors.

- School boards are working to ban books by and about people of color so their straight white kids won’t have to read about people different from themselves.

- Anti-voting bills have been introduced in 48 states and several have passed, particularly in former Confederate states to specifically keep people of color from voting.

- Donald Trump and his racist rants still play very well on Fox “News” and other outlets run and visited primarily by scared whites, mostly men, and he still holds rallies for his racist supporters.

So, it is the anniversary of January 6^th.  What are we going to do about it?  Will Donald Trump and the organizers of the insurgency be held accountable?  I honestly doubt it.  Our Attorney General did not seem too keen on dealing with this event with the urgency it deserves.  Somehow, Donald Trump will again be let off like a spoiled child and our nation will be scarred by our continued inability to hold people accountable for their actions, or rather, the white Republican ones.  Biden is already being held accountable, blamed for not doing something in his first year, I am not quite sure what that is because he rolled out COVID vaccines to all the states with unprecedented speed, passed a bill to financially support families, got an infrastructure bill passed that will fix a lot of our roads, bridges, railways, as well as expand the internet, and appointed really qualified judges for the federal courts.  That’s pretty damn amazing, but not to the media which is already regularly predicting a Republican take-over in this year’s elections. 

Do I think there will be fair accountability for the insurrection?  No, I don’t.  I do want to be proven wrong, though.