OPEN LETTER TO REPUBLICANS IN CONGRESS

by Ruth A. Sheets

Dear 2020 era Republicans,

Wow!  There seem to be no depths to which many of you will not go these days.  Even in the midst of a pandemic, you worry more about coddling huge corporations than taking care of the PPE (protective gear) needs of front-line workers.  You cover for every misstep Mr. Trump makes as he fumbles his way through challenges that he neither understands nor really cares about.  You in the Senate of the United States continue to approve nominees from partisan operatives to stack our courts with people you are pretty sure will be unfair to most of the people of this country, you know, the ones that are not rich, white, straight “Christian” males.  You are OK with the Senate being neutered by Mr. McConnell for his own purposes, possibly yours too, that isn’t entirely clear yet.

As you Republicans all well know, Mr. Trump is not fit to hold the office of president, but you just love him because you can manipulate him into doing the damage to this nation you have wanted to do for a long time.  Among the damage:

-destroy the post office even though it is provided for in the Constitution, to benefit rich corporations who will donate to your future campaigns
-Destroy public lands on behalf of hugely wealthy  donors
-force through judgeships for people who are neither qualified nor ethically suited to be a judge of anything
-slow and impede the response to COVID19 at the expense of many lives.  Your president is OK with it since they are mostly old people and people of color who are dying, and in blue states too, win-win-win!
-You give most of the money in stimulus to the huge corporations who, by rights, should be able to fend for themselves with all the other corporate welfare you have blessed them with over the years.
-You are trying to reinstate the “Patriot Act” which was wrong when it was passed by the frightened white guys in Congress who couldn’t think of anything else but to take away people’s rights and supports in a time of crisis, unfortunately shaming and lying colleagues into going along with you.
-You allow our Justice Department to become Mr. Trump’s lapdogs, instating and dismissing cases at the president’s whim
-You dismiss climate change (global warming) as a hoax, which of course you know it isn’t, and that it’s serious.  What does that make you, hypocrites?
-You are OK with gerrymandering, voter suppression in its many forms, and forcing voters to go in crowds to vote and risk their lives or give up the vote.

I could go on because there is so much I didn’t get to, but alas, you wouldn't read it anyway.  You all are deeply under the spell of a man who thinks and acts like an 8-year-old school yard bully and you all know that about him.  He is moving into the beginnings of dementia.  You all know that too and still cling to him because Republicans, you know, are ethically bankrupt.  You knew Mr. Trump committed the crimes he was impeached for, and more.  To prove you knew, you made it so there could be no witnesses in his trial.  That says nothing about Mr. Trump's innocence, only your guilt.

As a teacher, during Teacher Appreciation Week, I am alas, saddened to see the lack of critical thinking employed by Republicans for the past 70 years or so, from McCarthy to Trump-McConnell.  Thank goodness there have been a few bright lights among your party’s members, but ah, , too few.  I can’t help but wonder if we teachers are just not teaching critical thinking sufficient for people to make better decisions or if something else is at play.

And then, there are the ethics.  I can’t help but wonder if you are all OK with the lying and cheating that many of your party are using to obtain and maintain office:  gerrymandering, voter suppression, purging the voting roles.  You know the purpose of all these things is to deny voting rights to your fellow citizens.  You do it under the guise of protection from voter fraud, but in recent years, nearly all the voter fraud in the extremely rare cases where there was any, was done by Republican voters.

I can only hope you all will do better in the future for the sake of all of us, but the nearly certain thing, change is really hard, especially if you are getting the changes to our country you want for your own benefit.  You might start to think a bit about why you want so many to have fewer rights than you have, why you continue to blame poor people for their poverty, why you think rich people deserve more than everyone else and keep pumping money into their pockets.  Why do you despise young people so much (except your own kids, of course) that you dismiss their demands for a strong positive response to climate change (global warming), voting rights, poverty, human rights, sensible gun control, and their other issues.

Your party hasn’t exactly covered itself in glory this past quarter century.  Don’t you think it’s about time you stage your own rebellion and occasionally, put the needs of others who perhaps don’t look, think, or believe like you, ahead of your party’s destructive agenda?  Sadly, I don’t see that happening.

If you were ready to rebel at all, you would be telling McConnell, “no more nominee approvals until the nation is back on its feet, and no more incompetents approved.”  You’d tell Mr. Trump to listen to the experts, and he himself is not an expert on this.  You’d be 100% behind laws to insure every American citizen has the right and ability to vote unimpeded in every election.  You’d see the pain Americans are experiencing now and you’d be standing with them doing everything in your power to get those frontline workers everything they need to care for themselves and the people they encounter.

I know, I hear you laughing or, some of you, tossing a curse in my direction.  Oh well, another fault of us teachers.  We haven’t taught you to take and learn from a critique. 

CHANGE OF FUTURE

by Ruth A. Sheets

We need a very different future than was on the drawing board before COVID19 hit.  Our representatives and fellow Americans need to take a variety of actions to change the trajectory of this nation and the world.  COVID19 has clearly pointed out problems our leaders have chosen to ignore in the past.  The time of ignorance is now gone and we must step up to meet the challenges facing us.

The following are some actions we can take to reshape the future in ways that will benefit everyone.

1. Global warming will move front and center in our thinking and every action.
a. we must become less of a super consumer society and more a reduce, reuse, and recycle kind of folks, with recycling plants all over the place.
b. Everyone will need solar panels and electric vehicles should become the standard.
c. Burning coal, except at limited levels will be outlawed,
d. Massive funding of renewable energy sources will take place, like the “man on the moon” efforts of the 1960s.

2. The flora and fauna that share our planet will have a more prominent place in our thinking and planning.  –

3. Our oceans must stop being our dumping place and our places for drilling and destruction.

4. Health care in this nation should be universal and supervised by the government.  No one should be making money on the suffering of others beyond salaries and general expenses.

5. Education should be funded at levels sufficient to provide children and young adults with the knowledge they will need to effectively maintain a career, participate actively in the life of the community in which they live, and be active informed citizens in the society.

6. The United States Postal Service, which is called for in the Constitution should be appropriately funded and should be able to perform basic banking  activities, particularly for lower income persons who may not be able to afford a bank.

7. Our prison system needs to be revamped so rehabilitation and treatment are the goals rather than just hiding away people of color in private for profit institutions.  No prison should be run by any entity but the local, state, or federal government who sentenced the prisoners.

8. Immigration will be addressed.  We need the general public to understand that refugees would not
be leaving their homes unless circumstances forced them to do so.
a. There should be a path to citizenship for all who were brought to or came to this country as children and it should not cost them a fortune.
b. The detention/concentration camps for immigrants will be closed and those imprisoned in them will be quickly and properly processed, most allowed to stay here.
c. Anyone who is a parent of US citizen children should have a path to citizenship too so they can stay and provide for those children.
d. In short, deportations need to stop.
e. Bans on citizens of other nations unless we are specifically at war with that nation or face a pandemic must stop permanently and not be allowed to be manipulated by a president or political party for its own edification.

9. Voting at all levels should involve automatic registration upon reaching 18 and mail-in options for anyone who chooses that, particularly during a natural disaster.
a. Voting security will be a priority.
b. voter suppression and gerrymandering will be permanently disallowed.  

10. Congressional procedures must change.
a. No one person in Congress should be able to block all legislation and votes on issues critical to the people of the nation and use extortion as Mr. McConnell has done for the past 5 years.
b. There should be a 60 vote majority in the Senate or a +5 votes to the number of senators in the majority to approve anyone for a lifetime appointment to a court.
c. Lobbyists must be removed from central positions in our government and lobbying should be a volunteer activity in which no favors or gifts can be passed to or from government officials.  Corporations and individuals with huge money pots should not be able to have more governmental influence than less wealthy individuals and groups.

11.  -Women and men will be legally recognized as equals and people will be respected and heard no matter their race, age, gender, LGTB status, political party, or any other factor.
a. Women will have the right to choose what happens to their own bodies
b. All kinds of reproductive health care will be available to all persons on request, including contraception and pregnancy services.  
c. LGTBQ citizens will have the full rights of any citizen without exception.
d. A committee will be assembled to begin addressing issues of reparation for African-Americans related to slavery and the racism that followed.

12. Workers will have basic rights and a living wage through a “workers’ bill of rights which will include paid sick leave, child care, and other needed services and protections.

13. Taxes on the wealthiest will be considerably higher than pre-COVID19, after companies are up and running and workers are back on the job, perhaps, a 2-year window after the crisis is past).

14. We will become more prepared for everything including natural disasters, pandemics, and more through appropriate funding.

15. We need to employ experts to get these actions going and share findings with everyone who can help.

16. We need to set ethical standards for whom we will nominate for public office and hold them to those standards.  The “lesser of two evils” should no longer be an acceptable means for judging a person’s ability to govern.  This one can’t be legislated, but it can be promoted through all media.

17. Dividers among us need to take a back seat for a while so others can succeed in bringing us together to accomplish this work.

This is an ambitious agenda, but we will need an ambitious agenda if we are to have a prosperous nation and a livable world, and we are running out of time to get this going.  This time of “sheltering in place” may give us all time to think about how we will live the next few years, what kind of world we will leave our children and grandchildren, what kind of people we will become through and beyond this crisis.  We have the time, let’s use it wisely.