Enemies of America must be absolutely joyful at the way that this country is being torn apart – by Americans. It should be patently clear by now that anyone with malign intent against the United States could not have come up with a better strategic plan than what we see being played out by the protoconservative right wing of the right wing of the Republican party.
In its efforts to stand against the tides of righteous change and justice, change and justice that has made this imperfect country a potentially better country, the neoconservative forces have managed to mangle many progressive initiatives and are trying to obliterate even the gossamer thin efforts to correct the countless wrongs committed in the name of the United States of America.
It appears that at some place along the path to true justice and reconciliation there are millions of Americans who are not interested in either. To millions of Americans rights and justice and equity of anyone who is not white somehow endangers their very existence. To millions of Americans – men and women – the idea of a woman having full and complete control over her body is not only a crime against nature, it is a crime against the foundation of America itself.
Someplace along the line millions of Americans have come to believe that civil rights, gender equity, women’s rights and a truly participatory and fair democracy are evil and must not only be curbed, they must be ground into the dust and tossed into the trash heap of history. These millions of Americans do not believe that American children should be told that the land on which they live was stolen or that the foundation of the wealth that many Americans enjoy was based on race-based slavery.
Somehow gender equity has become a mortal danger to American manhood. Somehow respect and care for the environment in which we will all live – or will all die – is seen as effete and against the American Way even as Environmental Armageddon is literally looming over the horizon.
For these millions of Americans, holding on to the broken and dusty shards of a misbegotten past is better that aspiring for a better and more inclusive tomorrow. And they will literally do anything and everything to hold on to those broken and dusty shards.
They will mangle interpretations of the singularly non-majoritarian Constitution to skew the voting process as well as declare fealty to rights that don’t exist (like the so-called right to bear arms) and to strip away rights that have barely taken root in Black and Latino and Asian communities.
They have gerrymandered themselves into the majority that they are not. They have packed the federal courts from the District level to the Supreme Court with young right-wing judges who will keep a stranglehold on any rights movement for a generation. And they have sanctioned the violent overthrow of the United States government if they don’t get their way.
As the January 6th Committee presents the results of a one-year investigation into the events of 1.6.21 we will learn the depths to which the right wing will lie, cheat, and kill in order to maintain their minority rule.
There was once a country with a race-based regiment of minority rule that ultimately faded away – but not without a fight. Indeed, the minority white regime in the Republic of South Africa laid out the blueprint for how white minority rule can work in the short term.
But it should be clear, America is not South Africa and it may be that the Afrikaner blueprint may just lead to a dystopian whirlpool of grievances from which it will be difficult for this country to survive.
So called Second Amendment rights – the right to bear arms. What one needs to understand is that at the time the Second Amendment was written, there were no machine guns and assault weapons of the kind that we have today. Yet the gun lobby and extreme right wing make it appear that banning assault weapons of the kind that we have today is an attempt to take away their constitutional rights.
Besides, I see an irresponsible level of insensitivity and callousness in the Republican objection to background checks and waiting period before a person can buy a gun. If the 18 Year-old child that killed a mass of people at Uvalde had had to wait 30 days to purchase a gun, his anger may have mellowed and he may have not gone to the school to kill all those kids and their teacher. A background check may have been able to find out about the child’s home and other frustrating experiences that may have disqualified him from being sold a gun.
I am, also puzzled at the the Republican focus on fixing the mental health system. one is given the impression that fixing the mental health system will cure American of all mental health maladies that give rise to mass murders. This is a ridiculous and ludicrous argument. The Gun Lobby and the Republicans have never explained what exactly is missing in the mental health system. Secondly, the proponents of fixing the mental health system have not explained how the mental health system will be fixed so as to solve the problems that will prevent or eradicate the madness that leads people to mass murders of the kids that we have witnessed at Columbine, Sandy Hook and Uvalde.
I think the arguments of the Gun Lobby and the Republicans are about the profits from selling guns and the investments of the right wing legislators. One cannot convince me that a person needs an assault weapon or several assault weapons in their houses to defend themselves. According to the Gun Lobby and the Republicans, one could then as if one could also go to the manufacturers of the Bren, the Browning and the Sten and purchase a machine gun or even to purchase a Howitzer and rocket launchers. After all, these are arms that we could all bear as part of our constitutional rights. How about M-1 Abrams battle tank that could be parked in front of our houses to deter potential intruders. Yes! we could get those too.
Let us focus on the Republican call by Senator Rick Scott of Florida to end Social Security and Medicare taxes in 5 years. This is their next step. There should TV ads with Scott’s speech before Heritage Foundation calling for the end of these taxes…
At a minimum Biden should do an executive order extending the emergency school lunch program that is set to end by the end of this month…
Those two steps within the Democratic power the Democrats could get voters attention.
Agreed 👍
The GOP sounds like they are modeling the Taliban