Journal of the Plague Years

December 1, 2022

     It has been almost two weeks since the horrific mass shooting in Colorado Springs, where the body armor-clad 22 year old grandchild of a MAGA Republican legislator barged into Club Q, killing 5 people and injuring 25 more. Only the quick thinking of Richard Fierro, a battle-scarred Latino veteran, and a trans woman patron kept the death toll from being higher.  Richard Fierro was out with his wife, daughter and daughter’s boyfriend, seeking nothing more than a fun Saturday night watching one of his daughter’s friends perform in Club Q’s drag show (Source:  “Army Veteran Went Into ‘Combat Mode’ to Disarm the Club Q Shooter,” by Dave Phillips, The New York Times, 11/21/22).

    Fierro’s wife and daughter were injured and his daughter’s longtime boyfriend, Raymond Green Vance, was killed.  When police arrived at the scene, they handcuffed Fierro and held him in the back of a squad car for an hour, rather than apprehend the battered white perpetrator on the floor, (Source: ibid).

     The right wing response to the carnage bypassed the hollow “thoughts and prayers” invocation and doubled down on homophobia and transphobia, (Source: “Right-wing media and influencers double down on anti-LGBTQ rhetoric in wake of the Colorado shooting,”  by Ben Goggin and Kat Tenbarge, NBCNews.com, 11/23/22).  There were those who wondered what a straight man and his family were doing in a LGBTQ bar and those who cynically cited the killer’s assertion that they were nonbinary as proof that this wasn’t a hate crime. The vilest Christofascists heaped scorn on the victims,claiming that murders would continue unless trans affirming healthcare was stopped!

    We barely had time to catch our breath from the Colorado Springs mass shooting when we were rocked by the news of yet another.  Last Wednesday morning, as we awoke, hoping to concentrate on nothing more consequential than meal prep and travel logistics, we learned that a disgruntled Walmart manager had used a brand new 9mm handgun to execute six of his co-workers at a Chesapeake, Virginia Walmart the previous night, (Source:  “Walmart shooter left a ‘death note,’ bought gun the day of shooting,” by Ben Finley and Matthew Berakat, APnews.com, 11/26/22).

    The most striking thing about our response to these two shootings is how resigned we have become.  We treat mass shootings like inevitable acts of God (or the devil) that we are powerless to prevent.  It has become so disturbingly commonplace that a “new type of reporter” has emerged, “the ‘mass shooting correspondent’.” 

     The rhetorical response to mass shootings has normally followed a predictable rhythm of Democratic demand for gun control and Republican deflection.  Not this time. The right wing escalation after Colorado Springs shows that we have turned a dark corner.  In truth, we have known since January 6th that an aggrieved white supremacist minority seeks to impose its will through violence.  Republicans obdurately refuse to enact gun control legislation, not because of campaign donations from the NRA, but because they seek to empower that minority to menace or murder the majority of us who oppose them.  They gleefully feed their adherents hatred and lies and arm them with weapons of war to mow down those of us they have demonized.

      As a result, armed goons who believe the Second Amendment trumps the First are actively trying to silence and intimidate those of us simply trying to vote, or protest in favor of basic civil rights.  77% of those armed at protests are right wing (Source: “At Protests,Guns Are Doing the Talking,” by Mike McIntire, The New York Times, 11/26/22).  This is what makes Elon Musk’s blanket amnesty for racist, antisemitic and transphobic Twitter accounts and Trump’s cozy dinner with Ye and Nick Fuentes so incredibly dangerous. The world’s wealthiest man and the former President of the United States are literally platforming Nazis, amplifying and mainstreaming their hateful messages.

      While it is hard to believe that antisemitism, racism and transphobia are being openly celebrated in 2022 by millions of mediocre men (and the women who love them) who have nothing but the myth of their superiority to hold onto, we don’t have the luxury of being shocked.  As long as we sit, mouths agape in disbelief, thinking that these people will wake up and recognize our humanity, we’ll be engaged in asymmetrical warfare.  There is no choice but to literally disarm them and to overpower them by standing up for each other.  We need to show up for trans lives, condemn antisemitism, no matter the mouthpiece and combat anti-Black racism, every single day.  Yes it will be hard, but face it, the other way lies madness.

#MomsDemandAction

#Banassaultweapons

#callen-lorde.org

#NAACPLDEF

November 15, 2022

      One week past Election Day we can confidently say we fought the fascists to a draw.  The announcement of Catherine Cortez-Masto’s victory in Nevada Saturday night clinched Democratic control of the Senate.  Katie Hobbs’ win in the Arizona governor’s race, called last night, denied a telegenic Trumper the top spot in the state. Thanks to young voters, (who favored Democrats by a 28% margin), Black voters, and tireless organizing by thousands of regular people, we not only won the Senate, but a trifecta in the state governments in Michigan and Minnesota.  Election denying Secretary of State candidates lost in Michigan, Arizona and Nevada and we have flipped at least two Congressional seats (Wa-3 and Md-6) that prognosticators were sure were going to Republicans, (Source:  “Democrats still have a path to keep the House—but it’s tough,” by Andrew Prokop, Vox.com, 11/12/22).

   It was equally as significant that voters in California, Michigan and Vermont passed ballot measures to guarantee abortion rights, while in Kentucky, voters defeated a measure “aimed at denying constitutional protections for abortion,” (Source:  “Abortion, marijuana were also on 2022 ballots. Here’s how states voted,” by Karin Brulliard, The Washington Post, 11/10/22).

      While the Democratic Party results bucked the historic trend of a president’s party suffering significant losses in their first midterm, the magnitude of the surprise was thanks to the endless drumbeat of “red wave” predictions made by credulous pundits regurgitating Republican spin. They uncritically repeated the talking point that Americans would allow high gas prices and an imaginary crime wave to blind them to the existential threat posed by vituperative theocrats.

     This should serve as a cautionary tale. As we analyze the results over the coming weeks, we should also critically examine and push back against emerging narratives.  A prime example is the statement that Tuesday’s results prove that Florida is “ruby red” and that Democrats should not waste any time investing in the state. Those statements ignore Florida’s rampant and persistent voter suppression.

      Florida’s felon disenfranchisement law, like all such schemes, is rooted in a desire to deprive Black people of the right to vote.  Florida originally added lifetime disenfranchisement for people convicted of felonies in 1868, during Reconstruction.  The explicit purpose of the measure was to “prevent a negro legislature,” (Source:  “History of Florida’s Felony Disenfranchisement Provision,” The Brennan Center for Justice & Florida Rights Restoration Coalition. Brennancenter.org).

      Permanent disenfranchisement remained the law in Florida for more than one hundred years, despite decades of unsuccessful litigation and lobbying by civil rights groups.  By 2016, “more than one in five of Florida’s Black voting age population was disenfranchised,” (Source:  “Voting Rights Restoration Efforts in Florida,” brennancenter.org, 8/10/22).  In response, civil rights organizations formed the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition worked with the Brennan Center to get a measure ending felony disenfranchisement on the ballot.   It passed with 65% of the vote.

     The Republican legislature immediately set out to undermine the will of the people.  In June 2019, the governor signed Bill #7066 into law, which prohibited formerly incarcerated people from voting until they had satisfied their “legal financial obligations” and paid all fines and costs imposed on them by the court.  The law created an often insurmountable burden for Florida citizens who either couldn’t afford to pay all of the costs or, in many instances, even found out how much they owed.  Civil rights groups immediately challenged the law in court as an unconstitutional violation of the 14th Amendment (on equal protection and due process grounds) and the 24th Amendment (as an impermissible poll tax).  The District Court agreed and held that 7066 was unconstitutional.  The 11th Circuit reversed on appeal, leaving a scheme in place that disenfranchises almost 800,000 Floridians who are disproportionately Black, (Source:  “Litigation to Protect Amendment 4 in Florida,” Brennancenter.org, 9/11/20).

   Never one to shy away from performative cruelty, Governor Ron DeSantis engineered  the high profile arrests of 19 people (15 of whom were Black) for voter fraud.  DeSantis didn’t care that many of these people had been told by government officials that they could vote.  He didn’t care whether the arrests would ultimately hold up in court.  The only goal of this preening fascist with presidential ambitions was to build a victory on a foundation of voter suppression.  DeSantis’ 19 point margin is evidence of its success, (Source:  “Florida’s Voter Fraud Arrests Are Scaring Away Formerly Incarcerated Voters,” by Nicole Lewis and Alexandra Arriaga, TheMarshallProject.org, 11/4/22).

     As the Republicans try to pivot from Trump and pick a smarter, slicker vessel for their fascistic, theocratic aims, last Tuesday’s results are a reminder to treat prevailing narratives with healthy skepticism and always ask whose interests those narratives serve?  

     Saturday.  We’re three days out from an Election Day that may seal our fate as a country that has abandoned democracy.  Around the country, there are razor-thin margins in Senate and gubernatorial races between competent, rational and caring politicians on the one hand and hair-on-fire extremists who indulge in Confederate cosplay, proudly proclaim that they’ll support a nationwide abortion ban, and basically shut down democracy.  These races shouldn’t even be close.  The fact that they are tells us some sobering facts about our fellow Americans.

      Last week’s vicious attack on Paul Pelosi is a grim harbinger of things to come.  Last Friday at 2:00 a.m, a violent, right wing zealot broke into Nancy Pelosi’s San Francisco home armed with a hammer, zip ties and duct tape, looking for the Speaker.  When the assailant realized that she was not home, he attempted to take her husband, Paul Pelosi, hostage. Pelosi’s quick thinking summoned the police to arrive within minutes, but they could not prevent David DePape from fracturing the 82 year old’s skull with a hammer.  DePape later told authorities that he had planned to question Nancy Pelosi and if she “lied,” to break her kneecaps, (Source:  ““Details emerge in Paul Pelosi attack:  a break-in, conversation, 911 call, then violence,” by Bart Jansen, USA Today, 11/4/22).

     The uniform Republican response to this shocking act of political violence was to mythologize, minimize or mock.  In the first few days after the attack, the far right floated disgusting rumors of a personal relationship between Pelosi and his attacker, that were amplified by Apartheid Lex Luthor on the giant social media platform he purchased as a plaything. Kari Lake, Arizona gubernatorial candidate, used the attack on Pelosi as a punchline at a campaign event, drawing laughs from the crowd.

     Not one Republican expressed dismay or sympathy for the Speaker in the face of a blatant assasination attempt that nearly killed her husband, because this has been the goal of their stochastic terrorism all along.  They have demonized Nancy Pelosi for years because she has the temerity to be a woman with enormous power who wields it effectively.

    The far-right that has subsumed the Republican Party uses the same playbook everywhere — demonize and dehumanize  their opposition to justify violence and terror against us.  They seek electoral power so that they can do so with the patina of legitimacy.  Just look at the videos of  DeSantis’ “election police” arrests of Black voters or armed Oathkeepers patrolling ballot drop boxes in Arizona.  Republicans’ message to those who oppose their Christofascist aims is loud and clear— “we will threaten your life and liberty if you vote.”

     Let’s face it.  This side of America is very ugly, but it isn’t new.  These people are the children and grandchildren of the people who spit on and threw rocks at Ruby Bridges and the Little Rock 9 when they integrated public schools.  They are the children and grandchildren of the antisemitic “America Firsters” who found common cause with Hitler, that Rachel Maddow profiles in her new podcast, Ultra.  The only thing that stopped them then were brave Americans who chose to dig in and fight, rather than look away.  Wednesday morning, we may all have to decide what kind of Americans we’re going to be.

#Mobilize.us

#Voteriders.org

October 16, 2022

      It seems like our country is irretrievably broken.  Everywhere we turn, we see the full throated embrace of hatred and violence.  Anti-blackness has become so fashionable that Black people proudly sport it on the runway.  White supremacy is so widely seen as a ticket to power that Latinx elected officials casually dehumanize Black children while conspiring to deprive Black adults of political power.   The siren song of whiteness is so seductive that nearly 50% of us will forgive a corrupt vulgarian for fomenting insurrection and stealing state secrets because for them, whiteness trumps everything (pun intended).

      In such a scenario, despair seems not only understandable, but unavoidable.  We must remember that none of this is new. Kanye’s antics are a sideshow.  He is merely a troll mining the attention economy for money, and there have always been Black people willing to publicly work against the interests of Black people for profit.  The L.A. City Council is another matter entirely. It fits into a depressingly familiar pattern that Black people have seen again and again— that the quickest road to acceptance as a “true American” is to be virulently anti-Black.

      American history is replete with examples.  The Irish immigrants who fled famine and British persecution in the 1840’s were derided as criminal and subhuman by bigoted nativists. They were depicted as monkeys in newspaper cartoons and confined to the most menial jobs, (Source:  “When America Despised the Irish:  The 19th Century’s Refugee Crisis,” by Christopher Klein, History.com, (3/16/2017)).  

      Almost twenty years after their arrival as destitute refugees, Irish American New Yorkers erupted in a spasm of anti-Black violence that left 3000 Black New Yorkers homeless and caused millions of dollars in property damage.  In the years leading up to the Civil War, cotton represented 40% of the goods shipped out of New York’s ports and the city’s economy was dependent on the continuation of slavery.  Newspaper editors and politicians fomented white working class antipathy to abolition by warning that ending slavery would “flood the city with cheap” labor who would undercut white workers’ ability to earn a living, (Source: “White Riot:  Why The 1863 Draft Riots Matter Today,” by John Strausbaugh, The New York Observer, 7/11/2016). These fears were exacerbated by an 1857 recession that caused high unemployment.  

      When the Civil War began, some New Yorkers even considered seceding from the Union, rather than fighting on its behalf.  When President Lincoln passed a federal draft law in 1863 with a lottery that wealthy New Yorkers could buy their way out of, mobs of Irish Americans rioted, killing Black men, stringing their corpses up on lampposts and most notoriously, robbing the Colored Orphan Asylum on Fifth Avenue before burning it to the ground, (Source:  “New York Draft Riots,” by the editors of History.com, History.com, updated 9/6/2022).  

     Only 67 people were tried and convicted for their part in the New York Draft Riots and by the 1880’s Irish Americans, who had built a robust political machine that elected Irish American mayors in New York and Boston, “were considered acceptable and assimilable to the American way of life,” (Source:  “When America Despised the Irish,” citing “The Irish Americans:  A History,” by Jay P. Dolan).

     Successive waves of immigrants replicating this pattern led inexorably to where we are today— with a significant percentage of people who equate white supremacy with patriotism and believe, based on the evidence, that violent anti-Blackness will not be punished. Our only recourse is to elect people who will prove them wrong.  For some of us, it may be the difference between life and death.  We have 23 days.

#VOTERIDERS

#RECLAIMOURVOTE

#ACTBLUE

September 24, 2022

      Wednesday was bookended by two significant victories in the ongoing battle to hold Trump accountable.  Wednesday morning, New York Attorney General Tish James held a press conference to announce the filing of a massive civil suit against Trump, three of his four adult children and his company.  The 220 page complaint detailed more than 200 instances of alleged fraud, including multiple reported valuations for Trump properties that were wildly in excess of their appraised value, (Source:  “New York Attorney General Accuses Trump of Staggering Fraud in Lawsuit,” by Jonah E. Bromwich, William K. Rashbaum and Ben Protess, The NewYork Times, 9/21/22). 

One particularly egregious example was the valuation of Trump’s triplex apartment in Trump Tower. It went from a valuation of $80 million in 2011 to a purported valuation of $327 million in 2015 (Source:  People of the State of New York v. Donald J. Trump, et al, Complaint, pp 75-76).  The fourfold increase was supported by lying about both the size of the apartment (alleging that it was 30,000 square feet, rather than 11,000 and by quoting a price of $18,000 per square foot, far in excess of the $4459 per square foot that was the highest reported price per square foot in Trump Tower at the time, (Source:  ibid, pp.78-79).  

     The lawsuit seeks to permanently ban Trump and three of his adult children from serving as officers or directors of any New York State corporation or similar business entity, and to bar Trump and the Trump organization from applying for loans from any New York State financial institution or acquiring commercial real estate in New York for five years.  The complaint also demands disgorgement of fraudulently obtained financial benefit, estimated to be $250 million dollars, (Source:  ibid, pp 212-213).

      Then on Wednesday night, a three judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed Judge Aileen Cannon’s inexplicable ruling barring the Justice Department from reviewing 100 classified documents seized from Mar-a-Lago in its criminal investigation.  In its opinion, the 11th Circuit stated that it “cannot discern why [Trump] would have an individual interest in or need for any of the 100 documents with classification markings,” (Source:  “Appeals court:  Justice Department can use Mar-a-Lago documents in criminal probe,” by Devlin Barrett, The Washington Post, 9/21/22).

    These two legal developments are victories for the Rule of Law and bring Trump closer to suffering some consequence for his rampant criminality.  It is tempting to simply watch him squirm as his legal woes mount almost hourly, but we’ve known since January 6, 2021 that Trump is far from the only threat to our democracy.

      A thousand toxic flowers have bloomed since Trump harnessed the American id, all eager to carry on Trump’s project of stripping civil rights from every American who isn’t a straight, white Christian man and plunging them into misery.  We need look no further than to the governors of Texas and Florida.  Since May, Texas Governor Greg Abbott has shipped 11,000 migrants who arrive at the border to New York, without resources, information or notice to New York officials, forcing the city to scramble to accommodate them, (Source:  “Migrant Crisis Puts New York’s ‘Right to Shelter’ Law to the Test,” by Jeffery C. Mays, The New York Times, 9/15/22).

       Not to be outdone, on September 15th, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis chartered a private jet to fly 50 asylum seekers to Martha’s Vineyard.  His gambit to “expose liberal hypocrisy” failed spectacularly when the people of Martha’s Vineyard rushed to help the migrants, providing food, clothing, shelter and interpreters, (Source: “ ‘They enriched us.’  Migrants’ 44-hour stay leaves indelible mark on Martha’s Vineyard,” by Ray Sanchez, CNN.com, 9/18/22).  

      The gleeful sadism of Abbott and DeSantis is not confined to border states or the South.  Across the country, a dispiriting parade of elected officials and political candidates traffic in a noxious combination of conspiracy theories and hatred.  In “Blue” New Jersey, Democratic incumbent, Tom Malinowski is facing a tough race against Trump acolyte, Tom Kean, Jr., who hopes to use his famous father’s moderate reputation to hoodwink independent voters.  In Pennsylvania, Doug Mastriano, an actual insurrectionist who wore a Confederate uniform to an Army college reunion, campaigns on a platform of a total abortion ban.

     Threats to democracy can be found among the candidates in every state, at every level of government.  We can’t afford to sit back with popcorn watching Trump’s troubles mount like it’s another season of “Billions.”  Every one of us must spend the next six weeks working to defeat extremists like our freedom depends on it.  Whether we know it or not, it does.

#postcardstovoters.org

#PADems.com

#voteriders.org

#Votesaveamerica.com

.

August 14, 2022

       Monday’s stunning raid on Mar-a-Lago jolted us out of our late summer torpor.  The prospect of Trump finally being held criminally liable for offenses too momentous to ignore has had us riveted.  As the week wore on, each of Trump’s blustery pronouncements was exposed as a lie and each of his bluffs was called. Merrick Garland used his reputation as a stolid  bureaucrat who moved at glacial pace to his advantage.  On Thursday Garland called a press conference to announce that he had  personally signed off on the search warrant and that the DOJ was petitioning the government to unseal it.

      When the warrant was unsealed on Friday, we learned that the FBI sought evidence of violations of violations of federal criminal statutes, 18 U.S.C. Sections 793, 2071, and 1519.  Section 793, known as the Espionage Act, prohibits “gathering, transmitting or losing” documents or information relating to national defense and is punishable by up to ten years in prison.  Section 2071 prohibits “concealment or removal”  of federal documents or records and carries a penalty of up to three years in prison.  Lastly, Section 1519 prohibits the “knowing concealment or falsification” of records or documents to “impede, obstruct, or influence”an investigation or the proper administration of the federal government and is punishable by a sentence of up to 20 years, (Source: Legal Information Institute, www.law.Cornell.edu).  These are not misdemeanors that can be dismissed as technical violations of the law. 

     While it has been satisfying to watch Trump and his apologists squirm, we cannot allow our preoccupation with Trump to blind us to both the empowering victories and ominous challenges that have emerged in the last several weeks.  Two weeks ago, Kansas voted overwhelmingly to protect abortion rights, defeating a measure that would have stripped it from the state constitution, (Source: “Kansans resoundingly reject measure designed to restrict abortion rights,” by Annie Gowan and Colby Itkowitz, The Washington Post, 8/3/22).

      The turnout of 900,000 was the highest in a primary in the state’s history with more than twice as voters as voted in 2018, (Source:  “4 charts that show just how big abortion won in Kansas,” by Rani Molla, Vox.com, 8/3/22).  Abortion rights won big in Kansas despite the fact that only 26% of its voters are Democrats.

     Three days later, as if in direct response, the Indiana legislature defiantly passed a law banning abortion except in cases of rape, incest, fatal fetal abnormality or “risk of death or severe health risk” to the mother,(Source:  “Indiana Governor Signs First Post-Roe Abortion Ban,” by Mitch Smith and Julie Bosman, The New York Times, 8/5/22).

     Democrats capped last week with another victory, by passing the Inflation Reduction Act, a law which will provide $300 billion to combat climate change, permit Medicare to bargain with drug makers to lower the cost of prescription drugs and compel corporations earning a billion dollars or more annually to pay a “15% minimum tax,” (Source:  “Democrats passed a major climate, health and tax bill.  Here’s what’s in it,” by Deepa Shivram, NPR.com, 8/7/22).

Yet, while Democrats were busy cajoling their eternal holdouts, Manchin and Sinema, to support this sweeping legislation that will protect the planet, improve the lives of American seniors and force corporations to begin paying their fair share of taxes, the Republicans’ alternate dystopian vision for America was playing out in primary elections around the country where Republicans elected far right radicals like Arizona’s Republican Senate candiate, Blake Masters and Trump backed Michigan gubernatorial candidate, Tudor Dixon.

      It played out in Dallas at last weekend’s CPAC convention, which hosted Hungarian autocrat, Viktor Orban, as its opening speaker.  Orban’s speech, a medley of hatemongers’ greatest hits, railed against “race-mixing” and “drag queens.”  Orban echoed the same themes he had hit in a July speech that prompted his close advisor, Zsuzsa Hegedus to resign in a scathing letter comparing Orban’s rhetoric to Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels.  The CPAC audience, on the other hand, lapped it up, (Source:  “Republicans at CPAC embrace a defiant Viktor Orban amid outrage over ‘mixed-race’ remarks,” by Neil Vigdor, The New York Times, 8/4/22).

     The pattern is clear.  Every gain we achieve only strengthens their resolve.  While we should enjoy the spectacle playing out in South Florida and savor our victories, we cannot let it lull us into complacency.  Given Trump disciples like Abbott and DeSantis, who eagerly double down on his racism, misogyny and homophobia, holding Trump accountable for his crimes is necessary, but hardly sufficient.  Given Trump’s thousands of deranged foot soldiers in the Oathkeepers and the Proud Boys who are willing to violently attack the Capitol, elected officials or federal officers, even if, like Ricky Schiffer, they die in the attempt, it is rational to fear that our victories will be met with violence. We have to face that fear, because as Nelson Mandela said, “courage is not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.”  Democracy deserves all the courage we can muster.

​​

July 7, 2022

     Independence Day has always been an ironic holiday, but none in recent memory have felt so much like a cruel cosmic joke.  It was never accurate to mark July 4th, 1776 as the anniversary of American freedom when “democracy” was only available to white male landowners, with Indigenous people marked for genocide, Black people for enslavement and white women no better than property.  Yet, at least since the middle of the last century, we could point to the grudging and gradual expansion of the American ideal to include more of us.

     In the last six years, the smug certainty of the inevitability of American progress towards greater freedom has been erased.  In its stead is a pervasive sense of dread, a creeping fear that the America of our youthful imagination—brash, hopeful, good hearted, has been replaced with something dark and sinister.  In the last two weeks, dread has been supplanted by full blown panic.

    Far too many of us are belatedly realizing that the autocratic impulse to subjugate and persecute the “other” is not limited by region, wealth or education.  It is a disease that has permeated this country since its founding, afflicting the powerful, privileged and pedigreed as much as the ignorant, “lower class” that we are so quick to disdain.

Some of us are just learning what the most marginalized among us have always known— we are a nation of men, not laws. While a few marginalized Americans ascend to the corridors of power to maintain the illusion of meritocracy, the minute there is a real chance that this country will become a true multiracial democracy— where women, BIPOC people, LGBTQIA people have full citizenship rights, the forces of racism and misogyny tighten the noose, metaphorically and literally.

     The truth is American independence has always been a myth.  We may have thrown off the yoke of British colonialism, but this nation has always been in thrall— to violence, greed and white supremacy.

     This crisis presents an opportunity to remove the shackles of the toxic mythology that have imprisoned us all.  Ignoring the poisonous roots of our country’s greatness  has only allowed the disease to fester and grow.  Unchecked violence cannot be contained by color or creed or zip code— it will not only strike elderly Black shoppers or Jewish people in a synagogue, but flag wavers at an Independence Day parade.  Overturning Roe won’t simply force Black and Latinx women to bear babies against their will, but will retraumatize a 10 year old child who has been raped.  Allowing six radicals in robes to jettison all principles of sound legal reasoning to establish their theocratic vision for this country doesn’t merely threaten women’s bodily autonomy, but our collective rights to clean air and water and ultimately, our guarantee of one person, one vote.

     None of us can afford to sit on the sidelines, waiting for the axe to fall on us.  As we reflect on this year’s Independence Day, let’s all resolve to fight for freedom— for each and every one of us.

#ExpandtheSupremeCourt

#Abolishthefilibuster

#Codifyvotingrights

#CodifyRoeNow

June 25, 2022

     Knowing that the Dobbs opinion was coming did nothing to lessen our shock and revulsion when it arrived.  Most of us have lived most or all of our lives with the belief that women had a Constitutionally guaranteed right to bodily autonomy.  Yet if we are being honest, that constitutional “right” has never applied equally to all women.

     In 1976, a mere three years after the Roe decision, Congress passed the Hyde amendment.  That amendment barred the use of federal funds for abortion, except in cases where the life of the mother was at stake.  It did not allow for exceptions in cases of rape or incest until 1993, meaning that poor women, who are disproportionately Black and Brown, have been denied this Constitutional “right,” since 1980, when the Hyde Amendment first took effect, (Source:  “The Hyde Amendment at 35:  lessons for activists,” by Marlene Gerber Fried, fundabortionnow.org, 9/26/11).

    Across the South and in parts of the Midwest, Republican-led states have long pushed the envelope to chip away at abortion access, imposing waiting periods and parental consent requirements that deprived increasing swaths of women of this “right.”  Several Republican-led states were so confident that this day would come that they passed trigger laws that would ban abortions in their states the moment that Roe was overturned, (Source:  “A state-by-state look at abortion laws in America,” Associated Press, 6/25/22).

     The pro-choice activists and BIPOC women who spent the last 49 years valiantly fighting for reproductive justice, warning that this day would come were derided as hysterical. They recognized that rights that were “conditional” weren’t rights at all.  Yet, far too many of us accepted right-wing framing, allowing Republicans to call themselves “pro-life,” failing to challenge Democrats who voted to reauthorize the Hyde amendment every year, tacitly agreeing that poor women aren’t entitled to abortions.  Far too many Americans did this because deep down, they 

believe that BIPOC and poor women are morally deficient people whose exercise of sexual agency is shameful and deserves to be punished.

     Yesterday the chickens came home to roost.  Every woman and person with a uterus has been told, in no uncertain terms, that we are lesser beings who are not entitled to the full scope of civil rights guaranteed to every American. 

     We know they won’t stop there.  The radical Christofascists on the Court are drunk with power and they’re not shy about using it.  In his concurring opinion, Clarence Thomas urged the Court to re-examine Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell, which protect access to contraception, same sex relationships and same sex marriage.  Tellingly, Thomas omitted the mention of Loving v. Virginia, the decision permitting interracial marriage, which rests on the same foundation of substantive due process as those other three decisions.

       We need not waste time criticizing the inconsistency between the Court’s decision in Dobbs, allowing states to curtail the fundamental right to bodily autonomy and its decision in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association the day before, forbidding states from passing laws that strictly regulate citizens’ ability to carry firearms in public as an impermissible incursion on their Second Amendment rights.  This Court has made clear that it is thoroughly unconcerned with doctrinal consistency, stare decisis, or institutional legitimacy.  They have evinced a single minded desire to establish authoritarian rule by a religious minority in America, enforced by violence.  That is the thread that runs through all of their decisions in the last week, including Vega v. Tekoh, holding that police officers cannot be sued for failing to give suspects Miranda warning, and Carson v. Makin, rejecting Maine’s ban on aid to religious schools.

     This is no time for timidity and half measures.  We must use every tool in our arsenal, which means not only flooding the streets in protest, but doing the painstaking, unglamorous work of organizing locally to control town councils, boards of education and election, state Supreme Courts and state legislatures.  It means helping women in states where abortion has been outlawed by donating to the National Network of Abortion Funds.  It means using tactics we haven’t even thought of yet, because we haven’t been here in 100 years.

     This last week should have dispelled any illusions about where we are as a country.  This is a battle for our future.  Will we be a white supremacist theocracy where white women are property, BIPOC people are lesser humans and LGBTQIA people don’t “exist”?  Or will we be a flawed democracy always striving for liberty and justice for all?  We’d better fight like hell for the future that we want.  The other side certainly is.