MEDICATION NEEDED

by Ruth A. Sheets

When I was in 8^th grade, my history teacher made a unique assignment.  We were to write a day by day "news report" of what later came to be called, "the Six-day War" between Israel and its neighbors.  I read the paper and watched the news each evening and realized that the situation was far more complex than any report I could write.  I learned there is a history behind what is happening and that it is not always easily understood.  And, people's beliefs and emotions get mixed up in the events too. 

I got a second dose of this when the following year my Civics teacher assigned us to keep a "diary" of events in the Vietnam War for February 1968, which turned out to be one of the deadliest months of the war for the US.

At the end of each assignment, I was angry that there was absolutely nothing I could do that would in any way impact what was going on.  I couldn't stop Israel from taking over other people's land and I couldn't stop the destruction in Vietnam.  That one-month assignment ultimately led to my loss of support  for our government's war, and all our wars since then.

I doubt the journalists I was reading intended people to feel so angry and impotent, but the men who start wars either don't think about how people will respond to them or don't care as long as we don't get in their way.  I suspect those men are thinking only of how to achieve their goal, whatever that is.  They have to have enough force behind their efforts to keep things going, no matter what, and just enough popular support at home.  Journalists are just supposed to cover the action.

Last month, Russia attacked Ukraine.  The reason has changed over time"  Ukraine is really part of Russia, Ukraine is run by Nazis that have to be taken out, Russia is worried about NATO, Russia wants to give a black eye to the West - the US.  I suspect Russian President Putin has more excuses to pump out in case the above list doesn't work, or he'll keep using them all and add new ones as they occur to him.  Some are lies, some have a kernel of truth.  The whole operation is bullying, getting others to hurt the people he wants hurt so he can go in and take over.  his crew of soldiers is expendable as are the people of Ukraine.

Journalists have been covering the destruction Russian forces have been causing as well as the civilian deaths.  Instead of just numbers, reporters are interviewing Ukrainians facing the Russian onslaught.  It has been harder to interview Russians since Putin has shut down all but his media which broadcasts and prints only what he wants put out to the people.  Does it matter what Russians say if they only receive Putin-approved messages?  What would they base their opinions on when they could be arrested for speaking what the government doesn't want them to say? 

I have been feeling the kind of impotence I felt more than 50  years ago after my jr. high school assignments, as I learn about Russia's attack on Ukraine.  Unless Russia stops its insane invasion, there are no good solutions.  Russia is a nation where one man and the toadies he has groomed to go along with whatever he decides can invade any country or territory he wants.  China's Xi Jinping is in the same position deciding what to do about Taiwan, a nation that is happy with its independence, but Xi claims it is really China.  Will either risk a nuclear conflict? 

The United States is not blameless either.  We attacked Iraq with no real evidence of the "weapons of mass destruction" George W. Bush claimed.  We have been out of Iraq for more than a decade.  Is life in Iraq better now than before we invaded?  It depends on who you talk to.  The many people who died I suspect aren't doing better.

I see no end to the insanity and our feeling of helplessness that accompanies male aggression, unless there is an intervention.  A conservative pundit recently stated that war is the nature of things and part of the human condition, so we should just live with it.  I have heard that all my life, but I don't believe it.  I think it is the excuse we use to allow some men to remain children, the bullying kind of children.  Their childish behavior elicits a parental response from people who let them maintain it, but in adult settings.  We mistake their bullying, loud-mouthed proclamations, and abuse  as strength, not the bratty, whiny, childish trying to be king of the hill, boss of everyone around so they don't have to listen to anyone that it really is.  They particularly don't want to hear from those adults in the room who might tell them "no." 

I have a proposal.  I would like to see women and men who are researchers and want peace for the peoples of the world, to work on a medication that could be introduced to a leader's water system or air when talk of violence toward another nation or group breaks out.  Brain research has increased dramatically since my Jr. High days, so I am hoping something positive can come of it.  Brain scientists should look at the parts of the brain that light up when leaders and others are itching for a fight.  Find a way to send a medication that would slow down that part of the brain long enough for a cool-off period.  The medication could be spread as a temporary fog or highly targeted water infusion. 

I know I'm dreaming, but something does need to be done to  keep child-men out of power whenever possible, and keep men in leadership from harming other nations or their own people.  We as a whole people of Earth need to work on stopping global warming ASAP.  We don't have time to waste on deliberate destruction, killing, and out-of-control child-man leaders, some of whom have nuclear weapons, not to mention the cyber ones. 

We need you, brain scientists.  We need an anti-war, anti-megalomania medication soon!  Very soon!!

SEXISM AND MISOGYNY ALIVE AND WELL – HOPEFULLY NOT FOR LONG

by Ruth A. Sheets

I will state here that I have been a feminist since before I knew there was a word for what I was.  That was true in school as well as my Catholic catechism classes when the teachers in both settings called on the boys far more often and let them act out while reprimanding girls for the same actions.  And, I challenged those teachers more than once "How come you call on the boys all the time?"  I never got a satisfactory answer, but I came to understand.

One Sunday in church, I looked at the nuns sitting together in their special spot and realized how incredibly talented they were and why it should be that only men could be "on the altar" during mass.  Not even these deeply spiritual, well-educated women could ever hope to pass the sacred rail.  Everyone who held any role of significance in the church was male.  No women need apply, except when I looked around, it was women who filled the pews and kept the church going.

This revelation happened when I was in 8^th or 9^th grade.  At the same time, I visited my mom's Protestant (Schwenkfelder) church and a woman minister came to preach.  She was the pastor of a church in the denomination.  I was shocked because I had not heard of a woman being pastor.  I had just been hoping at the Catholic church girls could serve at mass, read from the scriptures, or sing in the choir.  I wasn't at first thinking about women as priests, but the idea grew in my mind, why not!  I asked one of our priests why a woman could not become a priest.  His answer was textbook, "Jesus and his apostles were all men."  When I asked about Mary Magdalene, Mary and Martha, the 3 women who planned to tend Jesus' tomb, he said they were not true apostles.  "Are you sure," I asked.  No answer.

My frustration with the church's anti-women stance took me and the other Catholic members of my family from the church at the end of my Sophomore year in high school.  None of us returned.

It seems not much has changed in the Catholic Church related to women in the past more than 50 years since I left.  Women can now read scripture and pass the sacred rail during mass, but women have no real authority, not even nuns who have given their lives to the church.  They do have a female Supreme Court Justice now, though, one who mouths all the traditional Catholic positions along with the other four conservative Catholic males on the Court. 

There was significant movement in the 1980s to inclusify the language of scriptures, hymns,  and prayers in some denominations, sometimes successfully, but many people in the church pews do not want the inclusive language.  It isn't familiar.  The Christian understanding of God as fully male in all God's "persons."  When I have asked women if it bothers them to see God as only male, most say they like the idea of a loving father in charge.  One friend told me that her father was not great and she liked the "good father" image.  They said, of course, Jesus was male and the Holy Spirit is just a spirit and they don't see it as male or female, or really, mostly male, but well . . ..  

Just as our society is built on the proposition that white is superior to all other races, most societies in the world are built on the proposition that male is superior to female.  For such propositions to be sustained, most people must either believe it or be forced to live it.  And, often, women are enforcers along with the men.

Just as there have been strong, intelligent, resourceful people of color throughout our history who have been ignored since they were simply, not seen by white people, there have been strong, intelligent, resourceful women of all races who were mostly ignored because they didn't fit male expectations of what a woman should be and anyone who actually met the expectations was no one worthy of notice.

Part of that set of female expectations included indoctrinating the children into the status each family member has:  Father at the top, ruler of all he surveys, boy children because they will inherit the father's world, the mother, then the female children.   I suspect that kids living in a traditional family today, if asked, could accurately identify the pecking order.  And, it's not enough that men are at the top of the human hierarchy, women need to be regularly put down, undermined, and kept in their place for the benefit of all.  There are always reasons for this, of course, at least for those who are doing the diminishing.

In some Muslim countries today, women are not to be educated or to only receive the most rudimentary schooling, and nothing in that education particularly useful.  It is strange since the Prophet's wives were well educated and his first wife was a business woman.  Maybe the men are just plain scared of women and having to share power.

In many other parts of the world, girls are only educated if the boys have been taken care of first.  Girls get what is left over.  Maybe the thought is that if women are educated they will want more than just bearing and raising children and being the maid for their husband.  Can't have that!

Here,  women are gaining some political status.  There are more than a hundred women in our House of Representatives and a few in the Senate which means we only need around a hundred sixty more to be at full representation since we are more than 50% of the population.  That is going to be a struggle because even women are often unwilling to vote for a woman, and feminism has become a dirty word.  It is popular for women to proclaim "I'm not a feminist!"  When asked what they think a feminist is, women say something like "it means women should take over everything and I like men and . . . ."

In 2016, Hillary Clinton was by far the most qualified person to be president and she did win the popular vote by nearly three million votes.  About 53% of the white women who voted, voted against her.  They couldn't/wouldn't explain why they chose a man who lied frequently, cheated in his business dealings, thought it was OK to grab women's genitals, insulted anyone who didn't agree with him, and more.  I believe it was a very simple choice for those women; he was a man and any man, even the worst man is better than the best woman.  When you have been fed all your life with the gruel of "man good – woman bad," it is hard to get past it, and there is very little incentive to do it.  

I was speaking recently with a woman I like and respect.  We got on the topic of politics and she mentioned that she hates Nancy Pelosi.  I asked what about her made her hate the Speaker of the House.  She said she didn't like her positions on things.  I asked if there were something in particular.  She couldn't name one thing.  I asked if it could be that Pelosi is a woman in power.  She said she didn't think so and added she didn't care for Kamala Harris either, saying it was because she wasn't doing anything.  I asked what she thought about her going to Hungary to work on issues related to the Ukrainian refugees.  She wasn't aware of that.  I asked what she thought VP Harris should be doing.  She wasn't sure but "more than she is doing."

I know my friend is not unique.  hating or dismissing women is standard operating procedure and nearly always has been.  It can be pretty powerful and disheartening when it is a woman who is the misogynist. 

I expect some, even many men hating and dismissing women but am still shocked at the level of it among women.  Maybe the problem is there have been so few positions of authority for women, if a woman gets one, there is nothing for anyone else. 

There are many positions these days created by men for female misogynists.  They are the handmaidens of the sexist males.  These women who stand against equality claiming "I am already equal, just in a different sphere." are employed by conservative media, churches, educational institutions, the courts, even politics to maintain the status quo. 

Yes, Sexism and Misogyny are alive and well and many men and women are participating.  We need a new "Age of Enlightenment" where women can be seen as standing for themselves in decision-making and men work to stop men's desperate need to be superior while fearing (knowing) they are not. 

Men ushered in the last "Age of Enlightenment" where they continued to hold in place, using "reason" all the old male supremacy ideas of the past while they talked about "all men are created equal."  I guess women, it's our turn this time.  We need a new "Age of Enlightenment" in which women refuse to let men make decisions for us about our bodies, our education, our faith.  Many men are on women's side in this but, alas, some men in power are afraid of losing that power, and to women?  The "man good-woman bad" theology needs to be ejected in favor of something far more egalitarian.  OK, women, and pro-woman men, we're on!  Let's get this done!

WHAT IS IT WITH CHILD-MEN?

by Ruth A. Sheets

The world is watching Vladimir Putin as he positions himself to try to take over Ukraine.  He already bit off a big chunk without the permission of the Ukrainian people back in 2014, just because.  Putin now has in his head that he will rebuild the Soviet Union and take over the territories that were once under Soviet influence whether the people want that or not.

It is almost as though he was looking at an old map and got mad that he couldn’t rule more land like you know, Stalin back in the great old days.  He has even proposed that Stalin be seen by Russians as a hero.  That may work for younger Russians because they don’t know what it was like under Stalin in the Soviet Union and Russian history does not actually tell the truth.  parents and grandparents don’t want to talk much about Stalin and his crew because he was so horrific and responsible for the deaths of so many millions of people, even Ukrainians, and the suffering of so many more.  They wanted Stalin to be forgotten.

Putin, while playing “let’s pretend,” is recreating Soviet history and Russia’s greatness and sees himself as bringing back the glory.  Like a little child who wants what he wants when he wants it, Putin does not ever have to examine what he wants.  He just knows he wants it and believes it will give him more of what he needs to feel comforted and secure. 

Poorly parented kids usually don’t think about how their getting what they want will impact others.  They throw tantrums, bully their parents and other kids, and make scenes so they can get their way, and above all, they get attention, which, of course, is rarely enough.  They get the little kid’s lunch money, or get to stay up a couple of extra hours, or get dessert even if they have not eaten the healthy food.  Those spoiled kids look for what they can get next.  Their success generally means nothing beyond that moment, but it builds their confidence for future actions.

Childish leaders, like Putin, reason like little kids in a tantrum.  They yell insults, blame everyone else for whatever goes wrong or for what they themselves have caused.  They lie about nearly everything and accept no accountability.  They are a bottomless pit of need.  They must get everything they want, power, money, territory, undeserved acclamation, and more.  Their wanting never ends.  They never have to fully mature (grow up.)  They live in a fantasy of being smarter, more clever, more talented, more everything than anyone else.  If they think someone has more than they have, they will work to destroy them or take what they have.

Putin has done this to everyone he perceives has seriously stood in opposition to him.  He is now the bully left standing in the playground, daring everyone to try to stop him.  

I call Putin and those like him “child-men” and right now, there are a lot of them in power or attempting to gain power all over the world.  The interesting thing for me is the way people are drawn to these child-men.  It is almost as though we instinctively know they are children blustering their way through life, so we want to help them in some way as caring adults try to help little children, to the point of supporting their absurd fantasies.

These child-men are not just leading countries like Russia, Hungary, China, Turkey, Syria, Brazil, Philippines, even the previous American administration.  Child-men are CEOs, legislators, party members, religious leaders, judges and justices, any position of responsibility could be occupied by a child-man, and often is.

A serious problem with having a child-man in power is that beyond themselves and what they want, what makes them feel good and strong that moment, they stand for nothing.  They rarely have an honest platform because it really doesn’t matter.  They find a few men and a woman or two who can write the speeches for them to read, but if asked about any parts of those speeches, they will blame, insult, misdirect, spout 3-word slogans, make things up, or just plain lie.  They, like schoolyard bullies are usually pretty cruel even to people in their entourage, and because those entourage members feel themselves close to power, they not only tolerate it, but come to expect, even like the abuse, like bad parents.

The successful child-man finds a base of people who have already given up on so much in life that they can’t look past the childish veneer to see that the child-man is an empty suit or rather, that “the emperor has no clothes.”

The child-man tries to make sure that anyone who does not love him just happens to lose their rights, even their freedom.  Guns are only for those who can be counted on to support the child-man.  In this country, that means loud white conservative men, and they can even carry their weapons wherever they go because who knows when they might need to use them!  Those who might not like those child-men in charge of the playground are terrorized and brutalized by police and other officials and are targets for the entitled white men who fire just because they feel “scared for their lives.” 

One way to keep child-men from ascending to power is to demand more of our leaders.  Just because a man is loud, can throw impressive tantrums, and can insult people and make himself look angry all the time does not make him worthy to be in charge of anything.  Those leaders rarely have positive ideas because they are too wrapped up in themselves to think more broadly.

Some things could make a difference but we, in this country will have to demand them.

- automatic voter registration for every single American citizen the day they turn 18 years old, and perhaps, incentives for voting so more adults can be in the room. 

- independent commissions in every state to draw district lines every 10 years with a national oversight board to be sure no one is being cheated and everyone is fairly represented.

- Vote by mail should be permitted for every voter who wants it also so more adults can be in the room. 

These won’t fix everything but a whole lot less energy will have to be expended on being able to vote that could be directed toward vetting candidates and actually researching platforms.  The citizens of other nations will have to make their own demands of their leaders.

We could also help parents and teachers to raise and educated group of young people who will have the skills and abilities of adults and be expected to learn and grow into them.  Then, from kindergarten on, teach children to recognize the kinds of behaviors that make good leaders and when those are not present in a candidate. 

Child-men have probably always been around, but now we see them and their bad behavior splashed over the airwaves as well as social media.  Perhaps those media could more often call out the leaders and candidates (child-men) for their childish behavior and their selfish claims and poor logic.  Media can identify power plays and the potential impacts on the people targeted.  Once a Putin is in power, it is hard to unseat him because of his ability to secure the loyalty of people as childish and cruel as he is.

OK, I am dreaming, but I do believe we could do better to interrupt vulnerable people’s infatuation with the needy child-men.  I think we can!  We definitely should!

WHEN LIES ARE WHAT’S TAUGHT

by Ruth Sheets

Teachers are amazing.  Every day during the school year and often for summer school too, they get up, travel some distance (it varies), arrive at school, try to catch up on communications that came to them overnight, and set up their classrooms for the day.  That’s all before the students arrive.  Once that happens, the race is on to give students their very best, sharing information, facilitating discussion, evaluating understanding and progress for their many students, maintaining some level of order, and making the students’ learning experience valuable.  Then, for secondary and some elementary teachers, the process begins again when the next class comes in, then the next and the next to the end of the day. 

Most teachers are competent and knowledgeable about their subject(s), and invested in their own learning.  In most districts, to earn tenure, teachers must have a Master’s degree in education or their subject area before 5 years have passed.  Teachers are watched, evaluated, thrown into challenging situations for which they are not fully prepared, supplied with inadequate resources, working in rooms that are too hot, too cold, too small for the number of students.  They work with students who have inadequate access to technology, but are evaluated as to student success despite the obstacles.  These mostly well-trained, creative, caring, kid-loving professionals are now the target of scared uninformed, mostly white parents and politicians.  These folks in more than a few of our states are now expecting teachers to regularly lie by commission and omission.

Over the past year, Republicans have taken aim at our public education system, well, more than usual.  Teachers have weathered such attacks in the past by doing their jobs even better.  Many teachers left the profession, though, because they decided that they no longer wanted to accept the stress and abuse.  We are now seeing that the people in the field are those seriously committed to our kids, their learning, and their future.

The problem now, Republican school boards and politicians are doubling down on techniques used all over the world by authoritarian governments to make education everywhere in their realms uniformly dedicated to the business of indoctrinating children to just what the government wants kids to know.  That is not the way in a democracy but it does not seem to matter to the perpetrators of the attacks on our schools and libraries

In this iteration of going after our schools, The Trump cult has passed laws in several states that forbid teachers from telling the truth about a lot of subjects to their students.  They can’t share the “1619 Project” on racism in America or teach the Holocaust without presenting “the other side” or mention LGBTQ rights or talk about racism and slavery as anything but a personal choice by practitioners.  No controversial topics are to be discussed.  In some places, evolution (a fact) and climate change (also a fact) are not to be included in the curriculum or even discussed.  No sex education either just in case same-sex relations are mentioned or inspire questions by students.

The goal is to keep white children from feeling guilty or uncomfortable or as if they might want to positively change things.  These fragile white kids, their parents, and just about anyone else can now report any teacher who covers any of the above topics, and the financial penalties can be substantial.  Yay!  vigilantism!  Thanks, Texas, for getting things started with that! 

In our own state, Pennsylvania, there is a bill pending that would allow anyone in the state to report a teacher who has discussed any difficult topic.  In other states, mostly in the former Confederacy, there are proposals to live stream classrooms so anyone can watch and report.  Tennessee, Oklahoma, Florida, and South Dakota right now are among the worst, but Texas, Mississippi, New Hampshire, and others are following right behind.  In at least one state, teachers must report to the parent if a child asks a “challenging question,” whatever that is. 

The reporter I first heard fully discuss this had to do the “balance” thing and equated the above with colleges prohibiting abusive speech and bullying toward other students.  Sorry, but it’s not the same, not even close

The legalized lying about what teachers are teaching and forbidden to teach is so egregious every citizen of this country should be screaming.  The process is reminiscent of the Communist and Fascist crushing of speech that doesn’t fully support their propaganda, going on now in Russia, China, and other countries, and which consumed the Nazis throughout Europe, Franco’s rule in Spain, and the many Communist regimes in the last century.    

I partially blame the Supreme Court for magnifying this anti-democratic insanity.  I believe the approved lying got traction with the Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 in 2013.  The decision was based on the lie that the former Confederate states and a few others no longer should need to check in with the Department of Justice to make voting rules changes; they had learned their lesson and would no longer discriminate.  This allowed states to target voters and put into place all kinds of voter suppression policies, lying that they were necessary to stop fraud (practically non-existent).  This action by the Court led to disenfranchisement of people of color, students, and poor citizens who couldn’t get past all the new obstacles quickly placed in their way.  When people can’t vote, a whole lot of people who shouldn’t be in office get elected.

The media was a major force in permitting or even promoting the lying.  You’ve got to present “both sides” of every issue even if there are not 2 legitimate sides.  The media knew, for example, that Donald Trump as candidate and president lied a good part of the time (more than 30,000 times in public in his 4 years in office).  The best the media could do was say or imply that what he said might not be exactly fair or was an exaggeration.  They were lies!!  The word “lie” is rarely used even now.  Reporters will sometimes say falsehood or incorrect.  The word should have been “lie.”  It could have helped people who were only listening in passing to know that Trump is a serial liar, but the opportunity to stop it passed. 

How does this impact our public education system?  Well, it has normalized lying among many Republican and conservative groups.  Claim teachers are brainwashing their kids, it must be happening.  Claim the 1619 Project is filled with lies and they don’t even have to read it.  Ban books that promote sex or being gay or Black supremacy, they don’t have to read the books before lying about them either.  

Let’s face it, the reality is, a lot of white people are scared that somehow the increases in the number of people of color living in our nation will take away their white privilege that they don’t even admit they have.  They don’t want their privileged kids to be confronted by the fact that white people have committed all kinds of atrocities throughout history.  They want their sheltered kids to think that they have earned all the privilege they have and that it is those horrible others who are trying to take it away.  Those others include African-Americans, Latinx, Native Americans, Asian-Americans, LGBTQ persons, Muslims, historians, teachers, writers, and anyone who is not them and wants those white kids to learn about people other than whites.

Teachers have always been targets for whatever flavor of lying and mythmaking Americans are indulging in at the time:  Remember the Alamo, the honorable nature of the Confederacy and the good treatment of slaves, the necessity of interning Japanese-Americans and invading Iraq, and so much more, sometimes out of ignorance and sometimes because teaching the “lies/myths” was ordered (as propaganda).

We know better now but my guess is this current limiting of what teachers can say and what students can discuss will expand before common sense takes over, if it does.  We have lived a pandemic and are still in it and many of those same scared legislators and parents have ignored medical advice and have preferred lies about ineffective drugs and the suggestion that mask mandates infringe on their freedom.  Clearly the truth is just too hard for some adults to manage even if it is easier to digest and will keep them healthier and alive. 

I can’t help but wonder if any of those white legislators and parents have even considered the trauma their kids’ classmates of color have experienced from the bullying, false history, segregation, harassment by police, poverty, and more.  Nah! 

With these new restrictions on education, will students of color and LGBTQ students ever feel safe enough to share their feelings with their white classmates and if that sharing happens unbidden, will the teacher be blamed, prosecuted?  What happens to the students then?

Let’s face it, little white kids are not fragile.  They can read the books the former Confederacy wants to ban and expand their understanding.  They can hear about LGBTQ persons without suddenly becoming gay, but learning about it could save their life when they are trying to figure out who they are. 

It seems to me in this case, parents are the problem.  They worry their sons and daughters may get to know and appreciate the challenges faced by our nation and want to ask their parents what they have done to make things better.  Perhaps the parents have nothing to contribute and they don’t like it.

Clearly, we can’t count on the current Supreme Court, but we should be able to count on the non-right-wing media to keep what is happening in the states in people’s faces.  Political candidates who truly support democracy need to find clever, honest ways to get the word out to citizens about how voters are being used to keep others down by Republicans who are OK with taking away their rights in power.

Above all, teachers, don’t quit. That is just what Republicans are hoping for.  If you quit, they can break our schools and our unions, then dump anyone in classrooms feeding kids the BS that right-wing lies are really truth.  Already there is a teacher shortage and all kinds of inexperienced people are being allowed to be unsupervised in classrooms with vulnerable kids.  Hey, who cares what the kids are being fed as long as they are in person in school.  Parents have to work, you know. 

It is really hard when lying becomes the law of the land or at least in certain states.  We need teachers to find creative ways around these appalling laws/lies and we need to find ways to keep any of the bills now in state legislatures from passing.  We also need to fight these laws with everything we have – are you listening media?  We owe this to our kids, all our kids, even the “fragile” white ones.

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.