WHEN SUPREMES GO ROGUE

by Ruth A. Sheets

There are almost no words to describe the anger and frustration I am feeling now toward 6 Supreme Court justices who have decided they don't give a damn about women and our rights.  For them, our rights are open to being given and taken away at the will of an unelected body that has become hyper-partisan.  They need no reason except their own personal beliefs and religious biases.

All but one of the six are Roman Catholics, and the sixth (Gorsuch) might as well be.  The Catholic bishops are frightened that their power over people is waning, so they are using their influence to threaten elected officials of this nation to withhold the sacrament of Communion, a sacred part of the faith, and demand loyalty from practicing legislators.  Why would these men do that?  Their targets believe women should have the right to make decisions regarding their own bodily autonomy.  Can’t have that now can we?  Besides, those targets also think the separation of church and state is critical to maintaining our democracy.  Hmmm!  Can’t have that either!

Catholicism has become even more authoritarian than it was a half-century ago when Roe v. Wade was handed down with a 7-2 decision from a conservative-leaning Court. 

The misogyny of the Catholic church is the main reason I left the faith as a teen.  What is amazing to me since then is that the church has doubled down on keeping women out of power and unable to make bodily decisions for ourselves.  A majority of Catholics want bodily autonomy but remain in the church hoping, I guess that they can bring about real change.  I can sadly inform them, it will not happen.  Those of course, men, who rule the church under the Pope are selected for their conservatism and adherence to certain points of doctrine, even if far outdated and destructive. 

Abortion was not declared a sin until around 1869, but it has become one of the pillars of the Catholic Church.  The mid-19^th century was the time when women found out in large numbers that they didn’t have to be pregnant all the time and watch so many of their children die in infancy.  Abortion did not have to be a hit or miss operation performed by midwives and other community women with few resources but a lot of knowledge.  Doctors (men) could now do it, and for money.  Done right, it could be safe.  That meant women (admittedly rich women for the most part) could enjoy sex without as much fear.  It would be harder to shame women for getting pregnant out of marriage.  Can’t have that! 

This play for more power and influence in our government by the bishops is disgusting.  It would be great if a whole lot more women left the Catholic church.  It would be let’s say, fun to see how men try to keep the church going without their female handmaidens.

When Supreme Court justices pander to a church that is out of touch with what it means to be a loving caring, honest human being, we are in trouble!  And we ARE in trouble.

The Supreme Court has just stripped away our Constitutional right to abortion, citing as a reason, the writings of a 17th century guy who was into killing women as witches. Of course he opposed abortion because even at its most primitive, abortion sometimes led to freedom from constant male pressure to satisfy his “sexual needs” without having to bear another child, which of course, the father would not actually be raising.   

After its success with overturning a 108 year gun law in New York and the 49.5 year ruling that the right to abortion is Constitutional,  The Court is on its way to taking away more of our rights as Americans, just because.

Clarence Thomas, the justice whose wife helped organize an insurrection is saying that a bunch of other rights are on his hit list.  Why was he even allowed to rule on abortion rights since he was a credibly-accused sexual harasser in the workplace?  And why was Kavanaugh permitted when he was credibly accused of attempted rape by one woman with credible charges by other women the Judiciary Committee was never able to interview and the FBI under Trump didn’t investigate?  Two men with that history tied up with their Catholicism made them sure bets for voting to overturn Roe.  They should have had to recuse themselves, but alas, the Supreme Court has no code of ethics to follow and we know their personal ethics have a lot to be desired. 

So, Thomas has the next targets:  LGBTQ persons, birth control (I guess banning abortion is not enough to keep women barefoot and pregnant), and giving corporations more rights to harm us and our planet (OK he didn’t state it quite that way, but pretty close).  How much more of this infringement on our rights are we going to tolerate?  When will we as a people rise up and say “no?” 

It had better be soon because the Republicans are studying the Hungarian dictator Viktor Orbán to see how to make our country a dictatorship with them at the top.  Yes, what fun it will be ruled by a bunch of fools who have no idea how to govern but are sure that everyone but the very rich white folks is a taker while those good rich white guys are so generous and will teach those awful poor people they have to work at whatever pay the boss wants to give them and the women stay home with the kids they are forced to give birth to.  Poverty is just what happens!  Homelessness is what poor people deserve because their 60 hour work weeks just aren’t long enough.  If they had worked harder and longer, they would be able to afford housing.  The government shouldn’t have to pay for them, those losers!

They will insist everyone but themselves and their donors are lazy and they will pump that message out with the rest of the BS people will have to consume since they will control the media.  The courts will be delighted to take away more rights and dismiss the Constitution because those Republicans just don’t like it.  They don’t want people to protest or complain about their rights either. 

One may wonder what will happen when the effects of global warming hit. Well, who knows.  Because Republicans dismiss science except when it is finding a cure for their cancer or other personal complaints, they will have no clue what to do and those who do know will be out of power – remember COVID?

I wish I had a more positive outlook, but things are not looking good.  When one political party has no vision and no good ideas, it is hard to make a democracy work.  When that same party has the goal of taking away rights that have been enshrined in our Constitution for 50 years and more, then encourage the states to do as much harm to women (and their citizens in general) as possible, there is not a lot of hope.  And, when guns have more power than the people who will be harmed by them and when fetuses have more rights than the woman carrying them, it is hard to see any sanity reentering our lives any time soon unless Republicans are voted out of office all around the nation.

However, there are some things we can actually do if we have a mind to.

• Start with the President.  He could approve opening abortion clinics on federal lands.  There are federal lands in every state.  That is a stopgap, but could work for a while. Temporary pop-up clinics could be set up with housing for the staff and any other resources necessary on military bases and other federal installations.  
• Federal contracts should be given only to corporations that support women’s bodily autonomy actively and through medical insurance coverage
• A serious underground for abortion services and medications should arise training all kinds of women to perform basic abortions through 15 weeks, then only spend money to send at-risk women out of state.  There are homemade abortion devices that are safe and effective and could be taken apart quickly into the basic components if people come snooping around.

- Every woman from age 10 to death should go online and look up information about abortion clinics and abortion care every week so it won’t matter what information Google reports, no one will be put at risk since everyone will be looking.

• Give funds to states that offer abortion services to help with extra costs for women in the Confederacy and Confederate wannabee states who come for help.

- Vote vote vote!!  Choose candidates who stand for the rights of the people over corporations, over religious beliefs, over partisan garbage.  Ask each candidate to swear on their religious book that they will work to insure the rights of women, people of color, disabled persons, LGBTQ individuals, and more.  If they can’t swear to it, they do not deserve your vote.  Today’s Republican Party is not your mom’s Republican Party, so don’t vote for them on auto pilot.

• Make some waves: 
• - declare Lysistrata months when no woman will have sex with men at all;
• -conduct strikes of various kinds that let people see just how much women do;
• -make and regularly publish lists of the women who have died either in childbirth or while pregnant because they are forced to remain pregnant;
• - Sue the Confederate and Confederate wannabee states as well as the Republican Party  for the care and suffering of children born with extreme disabilities that forced-birth laws required to be born.
• -put up billboards with the names of convicted rapists in communities;
• -leave churches that consider women nothing if they are not virgins or moms with lots of kids (Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons, etc.);
• expand the process for getting women to safe abortions and getting abortion pills to women even before they become pregnant - perhaps have a neighborhood supplier;
• -shame huge corporations who have stood against women’s rights into getting them to fly charter planes from red states to places where women can get quality abortion care.

In short, there are things we can do.  I suspect some of these could get attention and help women while we work to overturn the current Supreme Court.  It’s time all of us get involved.  Change will not happen unless we demand it and we had better demand it!

A DEMOCRATIC DILEMMA

By Ruth A. Sheets

Robert Reich, Economist and former Labor Secretary in the Clinton Administration wrote recently about the power of “The Big Lie.”  He said that over a hundred candidates for critical offices around the country are “Big Lie” supporters and most have threatened to rework our political structure once they get elected.  They plan to do it in a variety of ways from forcing every voter in the state to re-register, to massively purging voter rolls, changing state constitutions, choosing the electors for president no matter who the state’s voters actually vote for, setting up “election police” as Gov. DeSantis in Florida is already doing (and you can guess who will be policed). 

Reading through Dr. Reich’s truths, it could be easy to just give up.  After all, our nation’s system of government is being attacked from many different directions at many levels and hope for the future seems pretty scarce. 

Who are the attackers of our system, our Constitution?  They are people who have chosen to follow a man whose only noticeable skills, are lying, insulting, bullying, blaming others for what he is doing, and inciting insurrection.  Oh yes, he is very skilled at escaping accountability too.  As for governing, he has absolutely no clue and surrounds himself with the most pathetic clutch of cheats, liars, plotters, cowards, and sycophants he can find, and we the people continue to pay for that. 

One set of attacks involves Our Congress where Republican senators and representatives have decided that acting for the good of the people no longer applies.  They get more attention by latching onto a series of lies, talking points they don’t have to think about.  The media ask them only fluff questions that are answered with a smile (sneer or smirk) and no substance in the response.  Republican leaders interrupt, insult, and otherwise deflect when a reporter actually asks a serious question.  They are all being well-trained in this.  Their sneer/smirk is supposed to show their base that it is the media who are trying to bring down our nation, not them.  It is working!  Gov. DeSantis of Florida is especially good at this deflection and rudeness in general and shines with it when questioned by a female journalist.  His base loves it. 

Republicans want all of us to be overwhelmed by their multi-directional assaults.  The Republican candidates all know they are lying through their teeth, but it's like a bratty little kid who tells his mommy or daddy a lie and gets away with it.  He keeps on lying, bigger and bigger lies until an adult finally stops him.  The problem, there have been few adults in the Republican Party for a long time.  Liz Cheyney and Adam Kinzinger of the January 6th Committee are trying to get some of the lying under control, but there are just too many kids and too many lies.

 Another arrow aimed at our Constitution, although sometimes unintentionally, is the media's obsession with "balance" (or what they call balance).  Giving equal time to the truth and the lies let the lies become bigger and seem true or “why would my newscasters report it if there weren’t something to it?” :  we're winning in Iraq/Afghanistan; Obama wasn't born in America; the 2008 Great Recession was Obama's fault; there are givers and takers and we (rich white Republicans) are the givers; A good guy with a gun will stop a bad guy with a gun; Trump is a good businessman; there are banks too big to fail; climate change is a hoax; Trump won the 2020 election; and so many more lies upon lies.  After a while, life-long Republicans who are feeling the strains of life give up and absorb the lies convincing themselves they must be true.  They are now the possessors of the "real" knowledge of what is going on and Trump is a good champion for them as he is a regular practitioner of the lying art. 

 Say anything loud enough and long enough and a significant portion of the population will believe it (particularly if it is a rich white male speaking).  Donald Trump and those like him are loud, and keep repeating the same lies over and over, evidence totally unnecessary.  Their followers not only believe it but figure out how to use the "knowledge" against those they feel are their enemy, the unbelievers.  They spew the lies at schoolboard meetings, town halls, and other gatherings, bullying others into passing local regulations based on the lies.  And, boy are they proud of their efforts!

 Cracking the shell of lies is our challenge.  The more it is pointed out, with evidence,  that a person’s cherished belief isn't true, the tighter it is grasped and the more lies are told  to "prove" it.  I SAW fraud being done (no you didn’t; you just didn’t know what was happening because you were ignorant of the process.  “Yes I did.  I saw the fraud; it was fraud, I know it” and so on. 

 Lies led to insurrection on January 6, 2021 with the Capitol attack by followers of Trump and his lies.  The Congressional Committee looking into this event have demonstrated it was planned and supported by members of the Republican elite, but prosecutions so far, have been few, and of the insurrectionist rank and file.  The higher-level folks have remained mostly untouched.  They don’t even feel they have to respond to subpoenas from the Committee for which they have faced no penalty.  Our Constitution has a remedy for some of this bad behavior.  It clearly states that insurrectionists and a list of others who have stood against our Constitution cannot hold public office after their insurrectionist actions.  I know it takes time, but, the pace of indictment and trial needs to be increased so that the "Big Lie" candidates can be stopped BEFORE the 2022 election.  Then, the honest media need to try different approaches to inform the public about the kind of people these insurrectionists are and what they stand for and plan to do.

 So, what can we the people who care about our country, its history, and maintaining the best parts of our incredible diverse society do? 

First, we need to keep from being discouraged.  We know we are being pursued on all sides by people with arguments, strategies, lies, and actions that have been cultivated for 50 years and more.  This process didn’t begin with Trump.  He was just the next step in Republican evolution.  Meanwhile, Democratic attention was elsewhere, building diversity, stopping pandemics, following science, expanding human rights, funding education, providing healthcare for everyone, etc.  Dems need to know what our goal is; I think it’s “to become a more perfect union.”

  Talk with friends and relatives, even acquaintances about voting and pointing out the goal and how we all will benefit from working toward that goal.  Help them to see that voting at every election counts, not just something you get around to when you can.

 Select a few organizations or candidates that reflect your most important positions, and support them with donations and/or volunteer time when you can. 

 Keep up with what is happening in the world.  Follow a mainstream media source you trust as well as one that fits your political leanings more closely.  If you can stand the insults and lying, check out Fox “News” or some other right-wing media to see their slant on events.  Don’t be shocked, just more determined to counter their efforts.

 Rebut but don’t repeat the lies when communicating with others on social media or in person.  Instead of saying “There was no fraud in the 2020 election,” say “It has been proven across the board that the 2020 election was the best-run, most secure election, probably ever.”  

Ask folks for evidence when they make claims that are clearly untrue.  Ask that they cite sources.  Be prepared to cite sources yourself.

Immerse yourself in other things besides politics or, get enough sleep that you have the energy to jump into the politics pool every day without feeling the negativity that current politics can bring.  Think of yourself as an explorer who is seeking new ways to counter and break down the lies, misdirection, gaslighting, and more that come with Republican lack of positive ideas and desperate need (or probably desire) to be in power.

 Sign petitions, write letters, make phone calls, and when possible, attend rallies to keep you sharp and able to generate new ideas and energy. 

 Our movement against the Big Lies is ongoing and will not be solved today or tomorrow.  After all, the Republican program has been in the works for 50 years and more.   Richard Nixon cheated in both of his presidential elections and won both times.  He was never held accountable, so is now the poster boy for committing crimes and getting elected anyway.

 We have a big challenge because Republicans have posted big lies and their base is on board.  We don’t have to stand by and watch the trainwreck!  We can stop the train.   

 Dems have let Republicans control the conversation about this country for too long.  Republican “anger” toward everyone but themselves makes progress difficult in a time when we are facing massive challenges, global warming being the most pressing.  Republicans for the most part can’t even admit it is happening, even as they evacuate ahead of massive wildfires, floods, and extreme storms.  We can’t count on them for anything but more attacks.  We need to give Americans positive ideas and possible solutions that include rather than exclude, that take into account the future rather than planning to move back to a nonexistent past.  We’re on and we need to succeed.

The 21st Century Strategy

By Ruth A. Sheets

I sign a lot of petitions hoping some of them will get through to the various receivers on issues I think are important.  I find doing this interesting even though I suspect most of the petitions go nowhere and are only an excuse to send a beg email.

I received a petition yesterday I did not quite believe.  It was a petition to the UK about their project to send people seeking asylum to Rwanda.  What!!!  The petition explained that Prime Minister Boris Johnson (a poor leader in my opinion) is giving the government of Rwanda hundreds of millions of pounds to take asylum-seekers from the UK.  I set it aside for a while to find out if this were true since I try to sign only petitions I actually know something about.

Later that day, Tuesday, June 7^th I was listening to my NPR station, WHYY, when a program came on with the topic of   UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson sending asylum-seekers to Rwanda.  The petition was from a reputable refugee organization, but I had hoped it was fantasy.  It wasn’t!

An apartment complex has been constructed outside the Rwandan capital with 50 rooms, a common area, and a pool.  The journalist who reported from Rwanda didn’t know how many people the building was supposed to hold because each room had several bunk beds.  She also didn’t  know what the goal was since none of the money sent by the UK to Rwanda would go to the asylum-seekers.  There was some hint of possible training and maybe jobs, but that was also unclear.

So, to recap, the UK is sending asylum-seekers from Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Syria, and other countries who risked their lives to get to Britain, to Rwanda, a poor nation with a history of one group massacring people who are not of their group. 

I have no idea whose plan this was, but I have no doubt Prime Minister Johnson was on board and has surrounded himself with a whole cadre of folks who, like him, have no moral compass.  Is the Parliament going along with it?  Probably. 

Asylum-seeking has been nearly sacred since the end of WWII but it seems it is losing its special place in society in the 21^st century.  The United States, under Barack Obama deported millions of asylum-seekers and refugees, often back into danger, even death.  Under Trump, asylum-seekers who were not deported were put into cages and children were torn from parents and for months were treated like animals.  Some still have not been reunited with their parents.  Currently, in addition to deporting folks, even people who have been living, working, and raising families in this country for decades, the immigration apparatus has been crippled so asylum-seekers are incarcerated in private for-profit prisons here or forced to wait in Mexico for years.  Trump’s CDC  accused those asylum-seekers of being a health threat for bringing COVID into the US.  Title 42 remains in place even though the CDC has dismissed the threat. 

Australia is keeping asylum-seekers and other possible immigrants on a very poor island off the coast of Australia.  Other countries in Europe have asylum-seekers quarantined on islands or in huge “refugee camps.”

There is a common feature here.  The asylum-seekers are people of color and the nations trying to keep or kick them out are predominantly white.

White people have been raised to see themselves as superior to everyone else, far superior.  They have been unhappy with people of color entering white society for centuries, permitting only a few who were not actually enslaved to stay.  They even tried to send the descendants of their enslaved people, not wanting free people of color to have rights, to some other part of the world (Liberia). 

Supposedly, in all those white nations, people of color have rights.  Ask people of color in any of those nations (OK most, because there might be one nation somewhere and a person of color somewhere who would not agree) and you would learn of the intense discrimination they experience every day.

Perhaps, as long as the white majority keeps electing racists to leadership roles, they will continue to find ways of ridding the society of asylum-seekers of color or forcing them to take the lowest-wage jobs, the dirtiest,  least appreciated work, if they let them in at all.  Of course that work is too menial for the families of white leaders, the true legacy citizens of that nation. 

Here in the US, Republican members of Congress and TV pundits have said the words “legacy citizens” out loud (it means white).  They have also told white folks to be very afraid because the reason people are coming here is to “replace” white people.  They imply this nation is white people, the “real” citizens, then there’s everyone else.  That is true in the other white nations too.  Each handles it slightly differently, but the message is the same.  White is good everything else is bad, unless you are winning a sports event or music competition “in our name,” then the “legacy citizens” will tolerate your celebrity until they don’t have to. 

It becomes more and more clear every day that white men (and some white women who have bought into the woman as walking incubator nonsense) are really scared.  How do we know?  There are many clues.  One is that they work hard to keep out asylum-seekers of color. (Ukrainians are OK because they are white, you know.)  People of color make up a greater percentage of incarcerated persons in white nations, being charged with crimes legacies commit at around the same rate.  White men in the US love their guns and can brag about it.  Police shoot Black men even if licensed to carry a gun. 

So, the 21^st century plan is to dump asylum-seekers wherever rich countries can find a poor enough place that can be forced or bribed to take them:  Mexico, islands that don’t touch the white nation’s mainland, impoverished countries in Africa.  I wonder which country is going to follow Rwanda.  South Africa is already trying to get rid of their immigrants and asylum-seekers too.  Their strategy is to just drive them out of the country or kill them, whichever works best for the ones doing the driving.

Those of us who are white and are not OK with the current system need to get the word out about the strategy and demand our leaders stop their racist behavior.  If they want to be racist themselves, that’s on them, but they should be unable to put into place racist policies anywhere.  We need to regularly call those scared white men (and women) out on their practices, report from the places asylum-seekers and refugees are being kept, often like animals in places run by private prison corporations, make documentaries on their plight, and more.  It is hard for a political party, a president, or prime minister to claim any kind of high ground when they see themselves as “guardians” whose duty it is to keep out all who can never be “legacy citizens,” except the useful ones, of course.

Some EFFECTS OF WHITE SUPREMACY

by Ruth A. Sheets

The various news media are crammed these days with reports of gun violence.  Sometimes it is the drive-by shooting, sometimes domestic violence, other times it’s a revenge killing that just happens to take out some innocent bystanders.  During May, it has been the mass killings by teen adult males who somehow believe they have the right to take as many lives as they can with assault weapons they are now old enough to buy legally.   

The police are not equal to the task of solving these crimes for a variety of reasons.  Unfortunately, most of the victims all over the country are people of color.  No matter how we cut it, it appears, to police, the lives of people of color just aren’t as valuable as white lives, even if it is not a conscious response.

Many Americans feel white supremacy is behind the inability of legislators to vote on even basic gun regulation that something between 70 and 90% of the American people want, even the white ones.  However, the white mostly “conservative” men in power don’t seem to care what the people want.  Why should they care?  If people are bombarded day after day with gun violence which Republicans in power know they will do nothing about, people won’t be paying attention to their rights being washed down the drain by those white mostly male Republicans. 

Republicans are now predominantly white, many, white supremacists even if they haven’t used the term directly.  Their actions clearly demonstrate their dismissal of people of color and women.  I contend it is just another proof that Republican white men (and some white women), are perpetually scared. 

Republican white supremacists (probably a redundant phrase) fear they might not always have the privilege they won't even acknowledge they have.  They are afraid everyone else will know what everyone already knows, that they are no smarter, wiser, more worthy than women or men of other "racial" groups.  Terrifying! 

Throughout history, at least since the late 15th century, we have societies that let white men believe in their own superiority and women and people of color have been forced to maintain and amplify that falsehood.

Over the years, white supremacists have regularly targeted issues important to holding their “superior” status.  I can’t help but wonder if to distract from those issues, they have figured out they can encourage some violence (wars and crime) to keep folks from paying attention.  Right now, it’s massive numbers of guns on the street, thinking young boys and men of color will be so busy defending their honor and territories they won’t notice anything else and the media will be overwhelmed with it.  When privileged teen adult white men shoot down a mass of people of color, or religious groups the supremacists don’t like, or kids, everyone’s attention is focused on the wrong hand.  The media continues to ignore or make irrelevant the other issues, the “real” ones that white Republican men (and the women who want to be them) care about

• Forcing women to remain pregnant no matter what will keep women of all colors from moving up in the business and political worlds.  Those men don’t want to compete with competent women.  And, forcing pregnancy on poor women and women of color will keep them struggling just to survive.
• Voting should be just for white folks, Republican ones of course.  Despite the Constitution, voting for everyone else should be made a hardship they won’t want to endure.
• The media are mostly controlled by rich white people (or white male wannabees).  They pick and choose whose voices will be heard and their false equivalencies keep the Republican white male minority voice heard above everyone else’s with little or no ability of others to respond to what those privileged white Republican men are saying, and what they are saying is not good for most Americans.
• White business crime is on the upswing and is bringing white men a lot of money they can ultimately use to keep themselves in power.
• Asylum-seekers who have a legal right to seek refuge in our country are being forced by Republican judges to stay in Mexico where they are prey for a wide range of criminals.  They have put in place Title 42 which is supposedly to keep COVID from spreading.  It’s real purpose now is to keep people of color from entering our country, in the words of white supremacists, “coming here to replace us.” 

 So, here we are back to the intense fear white “conservative” men are experiencing.  What does it mean to be replaced?  Scared white maledom has incorporated all kinds of groups they would not have considered acknowledging as white a century or two ago:  Irish, Polish, Russian, Italian, Greek, Spanish, Eastern Europeans.  White Cubans in Florida and Texas have been added (Ted Cruz, for example).  Is there a limit to who can be called “white?”  Are Republican men so worried they can’t find some other groups they can indoctrinate with their fear and hatred to initiate as white?

 Maybe to save our nation, it is time we ween Republican men (and the women who love them) off the milk of superiority.  They need to stand on their own feet, not always being held up by those they despise and believe are inferior to themselves.  Then, we who are not Conservative white men need to stop letting them lean on us so much by accepting blame for things they have done.  We cover for them all the time, even voting for them if they are loud and insulting enough, if they promise pie in the sky.

We accept responsibility for the home that is not perfectly kept and make excuses for jobs that pay less than what men are paid.  We step back so their feelings won't be hurt or they won’t strike out and hurt us.  We go along when they tell us the 2nd amendment means anyone has the right to own and carry a gun wherever they want to carry it.  We tell them their sports are more valuable and exciting than women's sports and don’t speak up when they claim that Black athletes have physical but not mental talents, and so on, day after day, century after century.  When will we tell them we have had enough?

We give up on our right to vote when those white supremacists tell us we don’t have the correct ID or signature or can’t get water or food from anyone or for anyone while standing in hot hours-long voting lines, lines those white supremacists would never permit in their own neighborhoods.  When will we, en masse demand automatic voting the moment we turn 18 and keep it until we die?

We allow ourselves to be shamed or villainized if we choose to abort a fetus for whatever reason even if abortion is the best or only option to make our life livable.  We let males who will never be pregnant and faced with a life or death decision related to that pregnancy, decide whether or not a woman can have an abortion and even when life begins.  That is simply nuts!  Their next forced imposition will be ending contraception.  When will we tell them “no” and mean it? 

We passively give permission for police to treat men of color worse than they would treat their dog and let them abuse peaceful protesters while letting white supremacy protests go on without interference.  When will we demand better, more just policing, removing from their positions the white supremacists who currently hold prominent places in most police departments

We have let those scared white supremacists dictate which books can be in our libraries, even if they haven’t read them and even though we are all supposed to have the right to free speech.  It seems only Republican white men and the women who wannabe them want to decide what is free speech and what is taught in school and what will make their fragile white children uncomfortable.  When will we tell them, “educators and librarians are the ones who will make those decisions and just being white does not give you an uneducated say?”

It is going to be hard for us to make meaningful changes.  That does not mean we shouldn’t be trying every day in everything we do.  Our voices need to ring out every day everywhere we are, even in the voting booth, even if it bothers others (you know those delicate white supremacists get upset).  We are quickly losing our rights, even rights listed or implied in the Constitution because those scared white supremacists are discovering that they aren’t as special as they think they are and don’t like it.  

For the sake of this society, for our children, and for our planet, we had better be about the work immediately.  We don’t have all day!