A Quick Love Letter to my Fellow Leftists

Do better; everyone is watching.

I say this with the utmost care to a vast majority of leftists I see engaging in online spaces, even ones I’m friends with personally: stop being so awful for a few minutes. I’m not talking about your politics here. I’m also not talking about being “polite” to fascists, cleaning up your cuss words, leaving toxic people in your life, or pretending to respect people like Donald Trump or Mitch McConnell or whomever. I’m talking about what you choose to criticize.

Your enemies aren’t the only ones who hear you when you talk (in fact, more often than not, your enemies don’t hear you at all) – your allies do, too. When you criticize a right-winger online for his poor grammar instead of the fact that he just advocated for the death of Black prisoners? Your ESL and dyslexic allies hear you. When you criticize Melania Trump for being a gold-digger or having lewd photos that exist of herself or having “way less class than Jackie Kennedy”? Your sex-worker and sex-positive allies hear you. When you criticize Donald Trump for wearing diapers or shaking when he drinks his water? Your disabled allies hear you. When you mock contemporary politicians for dressing “worse than” old politicians, for being “ugly” or overweight? Your fat and body-positive allies hear you. When you equate fascist beliefs and willful ignorance to a lack of education, or worse, mental instability? Your allies who could only afford a GED and your mentally ill allies hear you.

You are seen when you laugh and what you laugh at means something. Your allies hear you, and what we hear we understand to mean that these qualities – you find them detestable. They make the people you don’t like even worse, and that means that the only reason you tolerate those qualities in us is because you do like us. The modern political left is supposed to stand for progress and equality. What do those words even mean if we aren’t fighting for them for everyone? You can’t claim that you support human rights for all and then turn around and imply that any of these things you ridicule in your opponents makes them less human, less moral. You can’t advocate for your allies in one breath and mock them in the next. Besides, there is so much else to criticize about our political opponents – so much that is wrong with their ideology itself, so much that is truly morally detestable. Why do any of us lose ourselves in pointing out the things that don’t matter and the things that, often, catch the people we’re supposed to be fighting for on the backswing? Donald Trump is not a horrible man because he’s orange – he’s a horrible man because he lies and believes some people inherently deserve to die. The conservative movement is not horrible because it’s undereducated – it’s a horrible movement because it’s rooted in prejudiced ideology.

Should we be fighting for better education, mental health support, disability assistance, all that? Of course. But you’re doing the exact opposite when you add the lack of those things to the “bad” column for people you already can’t stand. Please, do better. Our movement will be so much bigger if we can make real intersectionality the bedrock.

We Are Not Finished

The road ahead of us is long, and the road behind us is even longer.

I’m writing this with the assumption that Joe Biden will actually make it into office – that an undemocratic power grab won’t take place and that we aren’t about to descend into an apocalyptic hellscape. I’m writing this with an awful lot of hope, but also an awful lot of expectations. I’ve seen so many people who align with the left, often with joyful tears streaming, talking about how “we’ve won.” I won’t delve into my pessimistic ideas about what’s actually going to happen between now and January; even considering the best, most democratic, most normal power transfer we can achieve – y’all, we have not won. Don’t get me wrong, I will be thrilled to watch a despotic maniac leave office. But this fight – the fight – is not over.

Kamala Harris has a deep and well-recorded history of disenfranchising marginalized communities when she has had power. Joe Biden is a pedophile whose political resume is rife with bad choices and cronyism. We must kick ourselves out of the “lesser evil” mentality – garden-variety systemic racism and old-normal police brutality cannot be acceptable conditions. That acceptance got us to this point in the first place. Who holds office next year will not erase the normalization of fascism as an ideology; will not level the economic playing field for hundreds of thousands of Americans living paycheck to paycheck or dying without food or shelter; will not resurrect the trans folks being murdered daily or protect the ones who yet haven’t been. I think that this concept that this was the victory, that this election was the battleground, is endemic to white cis middle-class liberalism. This fight did not begin with you or me, with Biden or Trump. And it will not end when we have decided we are satisfied. It ends when real equality is achieved.

Do not go back to brunch, do not return to your bubble of cat videos and mobile games, do not descend back into complacency. I know it’s exhausting to have had the diseases festering in American capitalist culture laid bare and not be able to cover them back up. But people are counting on you, on all of us; there is so much more work to be done. Be grateful we can do it in a marginally safer space under a new president, spread that joy and positivity far and wide – but do not forget.

“Look at a stone cutter hammering away at his rock, perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing in it. Yet at the hundred-and-first blow it will split in two, and I know it was not the last blow that did it, but all that had gone before.” -Jacob Riis

To Judge or not to Judge

Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing for Amy Coney Barrett

I am watching the confirmation hearings for selecting Judge Amy Coney Barrett as the next member to the United States Supreme Court. What a waste of time even holding the hearings.

Democrats are trying to get the Judge to answer how she views different case outcomes or potential outcomes. The Judge keeps refusing to give any hints on how she may rule on any case. Okay, likely a good course. Especially if you don’t want to taint yourself by showing your true feelings on any aspect of law. Consider though that the idea any person can completely set aside their personal opinions and beliefs and rule on an aspect of the law impartially is suspect. I just can’t buy that they can.

Republicans spend their time throwing roses to the Judge, telling her how wonderful she is. They then spend time in pontificating on the political stand being taken by the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee. Of course they ask no questions about her views on the law, knowing she won’t provide an answer.

I’ve seen this more than once in my life. It hasn’t changed really. I also don’t care about the arguments made (by Democrats) of how this nomination is being rammed through this close to election day. The whole thing is theater. The Democrats would do the same thing if they had the chance. Neither side has any moral high ground to stand on. If Democrats controlled the Senate and refused to move forward, Republicans would be screaming foul. Six of one, half-dozen of another.

I am of the opinion that this whole process for selecting members of the Court should even exist? There is no fairness in these type of proceedings. The members of the Committee are not worried one damn bit about what the people may, or may not, want. How could they when the people haven’t been asked? In other words, the process is flawed and appointments to any federal court system are only the will of the Senate.

Justices can be impeached. Only one has, Justice Samuel Chase in 1804. The Senate did not convict Justice Chase, so he remained on the Supreme Court. With a lifetime appointment, federal judges and the SCOTUS Justices have a long reaching effects on the laws in the United States. The people can do nothing about any judge or Justice with regard to their acceptability to be on the courts and their tenure (short of amending the US Constitution). This is an area that should be changed.

Here’s an option that should be considered. Let the Senate have their power to bring a judge or justice to a federal court. But, that lifetime appointment should not be continued for the Appellate or Supreme Courts. Why not have their tenure voted upon by the people every decade after being placed on the bench? So, how can we vote on them all every ten years?

There are 9 Supreme Court Justices and 179 Appellate Courts judges. So 188 members of the judiciary that would have to be voted upon by the people every ten years. Not all would be voted on at the same time, as it would happen ten years from the appointment of each individual judge. The voting would occur in a national election cycle (2 or 4 years), with the judges placed into the closest election cycle for their initial retention vote. Let their record on the bench be the information used by the people to decide. If voted out, no judge could ever hold a seat on the federal courts ever again. This keeps the Senate’s partisanship from subverting the will of the voters.

Now, you can say this won’t work, but you’d be wrong. Many States have retention votes for State Supreme Court judges, so it can work just as well at the federal level. It would require voters to familiarize themselves with a judges record, or it could be that there would be groups that would speak to their records to inform the voting population. Either is fine, just as long as the judges are not allowed to campaign for keeping their job. I’ll grant that it is not a perfect system, but it sure seems better than a judge facing a Senate hearing and vote once in their career.

But, one would ask how that guarantees a judge’s impartiality in their rulings? I would answer that by asking how is impartiality guaranteed currently? No, don’t try to argue that if they’re not they can be impeached. I refer you to paragraph six above. We can not count on Congress, any more than we can with Presidential impeachments. Plus, why should we? If the People are the final authority on how we are ruled, then the People have the right to directly decide. Then, and only then, can we hold judges accountable for what rulings they make, instead of this question and non-answer back-and-forth in judiciary hearings in the Senate.

Take today for example. Judge Coney Barrett is assured a seat on the Supreme Court. On November 10th a case on the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act will come before the Court. Now Justice Coney Barrett will be on the Court and will be ruling with the other Justices on the case, unless of course she recuses herself (not very likely). If she votes to overturn and the law and it is overturned, then the votes of the people will reflect whether she is right or not. The people will know how overturning the law has affected them for ten years and may well decide her removal is the correct response. Otherwise, there is no penalty for what she, along with the other Justices, may end up doing to the people in the United States. There should be no hiding from the people by any of them.

The only other choice is completely overturning the US political and legal system and instituting something completely new. That would be my preference, but the great majority of the people in the US are still sheep willing to be led around by the politicians in Congress and the President. Apparently they haven’t been screwed over enough yet to get angry and toss the whole damn thing into the dump.

Until next time

A Rant of Sorts

It makes me feel better

I started working on my musings of a hypothetical change to Socialism in America a few days ago. But, then I was interrupted by watching CNN and reading my internet news aggregator, and became distracted.

I have remained distracted and can’t get into the frame of mind to continue my musings. How can I when so much else is happening that should be holding everyone’s attention in the run up to the November 3rd election?

Are you sick and tired of the inept politicians of the “two” political parties and their sycophant followers? When did America get to the point to where they give up any independent thought and just follow along like sheeple? The issues mean nothing to the followers. The get told their respective leader will “fix” it all and that’s good enough for them. They don’t ask how or for any specifics that will reveal the truth of their leader’s plans. Instead, they go with the “just trust me” attitude projected at them.

I know that a large number of Americans don’t give a damn about politics until it’s time to elect a new President. The party affiliated don’t even listen to all the politicking going on before the election. They don’t need to since they’re mostly party line voters. They exercise their right to vote and immediately return to tuning it all out until the next election.

What these very followers do is fail their countrymen and countrywomen by abrogating their duty to work to make the Republic the nation it should be. These “silent” Americans are the very people who bring the divisiveness to the United States of America. They are too blame for not stopping the destruction of the country by the obscene rich and their corporations of destruction.

There are those of us in this country that are trying to overturn this ugliness called Capitalism, with it’s subordinate political structure to keep everything in place so that they can continue their quests for mega-riches and power over the rest of society. You, who sit on your asses in your oblivious life, caring not one bit for the hell all around you, allow this to happen.

You people are responsible for the suffering of the people. You people are responsible for allowing repressive leaders to rule over us all with disdain, laughing at us for our ineptitude. You people are responsible for the elite you allow to continue stealing the resources of the nation. You people are responsible for making the people poor, sick, tired, hungry, and mistreated. You people are responsible for allowing the continuing of centuries of racist hate that flows through America.

You people, you silent Americans, are responsible for condemning America to become a third-world country. You people are responsible for standing in the way of what is truly life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This America has had it’s chance. You people have had you chances. It’s no longer your right to interfere with the changes that must be made.

Stand with those fighting for a new America, or get run over and left behind. It’s your choice Silent America.

Until next time

Dead on Arrival: The US Constitution

A Document to enslave, suppress, and oppress the American underclasses.

I was 18 years-old when I joined the military. I took an oath to the US Constitution, as stated below:

I, (NAME), do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God.

I lived up to my oath I made through my military service and for long after I left the service. I believed in the importance of the US Constitution to American society. I was prepared to defend the US Constitution when arguments about the Constitution arose. I believed that our society could not survive without it. I chose to overlook any parts of the Constitution that were defective, such as in Article 1, Section 2, wherein Black people (meaning slaves primarily) were to be counted as 3/5th’s of a person for determining representation in the House of Representatives and for taxation. I believed this rule became null and void with the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the Constitution. I never questioned any part of the nation’s founding document. It should never been in the Constitution in the first place, but it was added to protect slavery and get the Constitution ratified.

I should have questioned it though. Now, when I look at the Constitution, I see a document written for the elite class only. It was written to keep the elite as the rulers of America. It was to keep all of the underclasses loyal to the demands of the elite. This is the living legacy of the Constitution right up to today. We are taught of the rights each of us have been “granted” and the prohibitions that the government can not use against the people. But, it’s all a lie because there is no equal treatment of all people.

I figure many are shouting, “No, that’s not true.” It’s your right to disagree, but it’s mine to maintain my current belief about the Constitution. The Constitution implement sdifferent ways of determining who represents us in Congress. Originally, for example, Senators were elected by the state legislature until the adoption of the 17th Amendment on April 8, 1913. Yes, it can be argued that the state legislatures were the representatives of the citizenry of the state, but were they?

The Electoral College is an obsolete in the need to determine the President of the United States. In our current technological country, there is no reason that the popular vote should not select a president. As with anything, there are opponents and supporters of the Electoral College. It would take amending the Constitution to end the Electoral College system. Or, completely scrap the Constitution and write a new one more designed with the current state of American society as the focus. My personal belief is to scrap it, along with the current political and economic systems that we have. I’m a socialist, what would you expect me to say, we should fix it?

With the current protesting ongoing in America, the Constitution’s Bill of Rights are being violated on a regular basis. Look at the 1st Amendment. Freedom of the press is ignored as members of the press reporting on protests are attacked, assaulted, and arrested by the police. Freedom to peacefully assemble has resulted in protestors being gassed, shot with pepper balls, rubber bullets, and violently assaulted by police, and hauled away to jail after being arrested – with bogus violations of law being charged. Yes, there is violence at protests, but they are by groups of people who hide among the lawful protestors before setting off looting, arson, attacks on police, and riots. Many of those arrested are held in confinement without charge and later released, a clear violation of the 6th Amendment. Oh, and about the arson, looting, and rioting, when has any demands for major societal changes been accomplished peacefully?

Tell me again how the Constitution protects the rights of the people? Lets go further. President Donald Trump has ordered that cities that he declares are in a state of anarchy should be stripped of federal funding. The memo sent to the, not ever honest, US Attorney General from Trump states, as reported by the Daily Beast:

“For the past few months, several state and local governments have contributed to the violence and destruction in their jurisdictions by failing to enforce the law, disempowering and significantly defunding their police departments, and refusing to accept offers of federal law enforcement assistance. To ensure that Federal funds are neither unduly wasted nor spent in a manner that directly violates our Government’s promise to protect life, liberty, and property, it is imperative that the Federal Government review the use of Federal funds by jurisdictions that permit anarchy, violence, and destruction in America’s cities.”

Show me where in the Constitution Trump has the authority to do this? Don’t give me any garbage about “preserving and protecting” the Constitution. The protests are not an attack on the Constitution, in fact rights are being exercised that are protected by the Constitution. Trump is just exercising his supposed “absolute power” he thinks is his right. There is NO authority for absolute power in the Constitution and there is NO prohibitions in the Constitution to prohibit such delusions.

Plain and simple, the US Constitution is outdated and insufficient as a governing document for the United States. It’s time that it is burned and a new model, suitable for the America that now exists, be put in it’s place. But, I figured people will cling to the Constitution unto death.

Until next time

Thoughts Roundup

Clearing out the clutter.

We’ve all been there, stray thoughts that tend to clutter up our mind. They must, sooner or later, be exorcised from our brain to make room to start gathering more stray thoughts. Well, “sooner or later” has arrived for me. Hopefully, some of these thoughts will be interesting to you.

Breonna Taylor: As we know, Breonna Taylor was, as far as many of us in America are concerned, was murdered in her sleep in her home on March 13, 2020. Yesterday the Kentucky Attorney General reported the decision of the Grand Jury reviewing the case. Of the three officers involved in shooting Breonna Taylor, only one was indicted. The indictment wasn’t for murdering her, it was for firing into the adjoining residence! The shooting of Ms Taylor was completely ignored. Once again, White America has justified murder by police officers.

As a result of this idiotic thinking by the Grand Jury, protests broke out in cities across America. Demands by peaceful protestors for justice for Breonna Taylor was thrown in the faces of Americans, as it should be every day. If Americans must be shown the shame they allow to be perpetrated, SO BE IT! America should not be allowed to continue the systemic racism that does exist, regardless of the opinions of Donald Trump and the Republicans in the country.

I fervently hope the protests never stop until America in remade into a nation where true equality and justice for all is the truth, not the convenient mirage Americans hide behind. I urge everyone to support Mutual Aid groups around the country helping those in need and protestors with supplies to sustain them during protests. These are volunteer groups of activists, not any government agency. They depend on the generosity of donors to their vital work.

Louisville Protest: Last night, as a reaction to the grand jury result, a protest went on in the city by protestors enraged by the decision. During the protest two Louisville PD officers were shot. A suspect was arrested by police and was “charged with wanton endangerment and assaulting a police officer,” according to an online BBC article. The alleged shooter was identified as Larynzo Johnson, a 26 year-old Black man.

We know damn well that Mr Johnson won’t be excused by an grand jury for his alleged actions. We know that when he is convicted he will suffer the full weight of the law at sentencing because he is a Black man. The racist White America will demand it. The system will use him as an example to others considering violent acts during protests. After all, they will say, the officers were just doing their job protecting the public. To me, they were doing their unstated jobs of suppressing lawful protest, using violence, and intimidating people they are also allegedly suppose to protect. The police must ensure the nation’s elite maintain the stranglehold over us.

This is how justice is meted out in America. Cops slide for their unlawful acts, while Black Americans suffer the heavy hand of the police, up to and including being murdered. Whether you want to accept it or not, systemic racism is a foundational base instituted by whites, for whites against all non-white people.

Donald Trump: How would any day be complete without thinking of Donald Trump? I’m being truthful and sarcastic at the same time. As usual Trump has continued his harangue on mail-in voting being rife with fraud (a lie). During his afternoon press conference he was asked if he would guarantee a peaceful transition of power after the election. As reported by CNN, Trump refused to guarantee the peaceful transition. Trump stated, “Well, we’re going to have to see what happens.”

Folks, Donald Trump has decided and is prepared to create a constitutional crisis after the election. He’ll begin by fighting the results in court and when he loses he’ll get his Republican Supreme Court to rule he is the lawful winner of the election. The Supreme Court will deny the will of the people, destroying any faith the people have in the “democratic” election process.We already know the national election process for selecting a president isn’t democratic because of the Electoral College. His grip on America after that will be stronger and America will really suffer. He’ll tighten his fascist regime’s control over every aspect of American society. You have now been warned, again. At least some Republicans are pushing back against his lunacy. I want to be wrong about this, but I fear I’m not.

Yesterday, Dr Stephen Hahn, FDA Commissioner, stated that vaccine approvals will be based on the science, not politics. Donald Trump responded to this statement, at his afternoon press conference, “We’re looking at that. That has to be approved by the White House, we may or may not approve it. That sounds like a political move,” according to a CBS News station. FDA rules must be approved by the White House, so Trump could have them changed.

Many, many Americans will decline to take the vaccine, as will I. No one should be put at risk for political purposes. Trump doesn’t give a tinkers damn who gets ill or dies from the side effects of or failures of a vaccine. He’s incapable of empathy and sympathy, like all sociopaths. He only cares about himself.

This is a pure political move so he can get a vaccine approved before November 3rd. He wants to be able to claim all the credit for the vaccine. He wants to use this, like everything, in his campaign. Why that matters, I know not. The election, in Trump’s mind, is going to be false and he’ll try to hold power regardless. However, it will be America who suffers if science isn’t used to determine a vaccine authorization from the FDA. How many will become ill? How many will die? How many children, for which there haven’t been any trials of a vaccine on children, will suffer? How many more families will mourn?

Speaking of Trump some more, he showed up this morning at the Supreme Court to pay his respects to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. As he stood looking towards the cabinet, he was wearing a face mask. So was Melania Trump. So, why now? I know there have been a few, very few, occasions he’s worn a mask, but it is still out of character for him. I believe he and Melania wore masks because he is not able to arrange the area to be “safe” for him. He feared the coronavirus. We’ve all seen at his rallies how he doesn’t wear a mask, as almost all of the crowd doesn’t. But, he is positioned well away from anyone while speaking at his rallies. He feels confident since he had control over the environment. So, obviously, as he also said to Bob Woodward, the coronavirus is dangerous and deadly in his mind.

One more thing on Trump and masks. Trump has said that his rallies should be called protests. That way they can legally, he believes, ignore masks and social distancing requirements, just like the protestors do. However, look at footage of several, or more, of the protests that have been happening since the George Floyd murder. In the footage, the wearing of masks or face covers are the general rule protestors follow. While, they aren’t staying safely distanced, they have masks on. Why has no reporter asked Trump about this being different, on mask wearing, at his rallies? He’d make up some lie probably, so why bother asking him.

Whew, that’s enough on Trump for today.

The US Supreme Court: Love them or hate them, they are a branch of the US Government. For now we have no choice about it. Anyway, we all know of the push by Trump and Senate Republicans to fill the chair of Justice Ginsburg. They have the votes to turn the court into 6 – 3 majority for Republicans. Yes, the Democrats in the Senate can slow down how fast it happens, but it will happen.

This spells ill for the country. A 6 – 3 majority will be able to attack and reverse many of the rights the Court placed into the legal fabric of America, like Roe v Wade for example. This concept of Mitch McConnell ramming through a new, Republican, justice to the Court has angered Democrats. Democrats are now saying that they will pack the Court in 2021, should they hold the House and flip the Senate.

Lets say Democrats try this. There are some things they must insure to get this to happen. If Trump holds the presidency, a Democratic Congress will have to have the votes to override a sure veto from Trump. The Democrats must have 2/3rd’s of the votes in each chamber of Congress to override any veto. That means some of the Republicans in each chamber would have to vote to override a veto. They wouldn’t. If Joe Biden is elected, then the Congressional Democrats have to insure the legislation would be signed by Biden. If he vetoes, back to trying to override the veto.

If the Democrats do get to pack the Court, their “victory” would be fleeting. You have to believe the Republicans will do the same when they regain power. Hell, if they all keep it up, in time the whole Country will sit on the Supreme Court (lmao). While having five ideological conservatives on the Court will be ugly, a Court packing war would ultimately be worse. The Democrats need to drop this stupid idea, like yesterday.

OK, we need a laugh. Check out this photo:

Chihuahua and a Rhino

That’s what our Chihuahua would be nutty enough to do. That poor Rhino is thinking while he runs, “What the hell is that little thing?” It just keeps making me laugh.

OK, my mind has been sufficiently uncluttered for now. We’ll do this again in the future.

Until next time

Republican Hypocrisy

Pisses Me Off, But isn’t Unsurprising

At a time the country, or at least a part of the country, are mourning the passing of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Republicans jump right to the politics of the situation and are already pushing for a quick vote on a successor. Senator Mitch McConnell leads the move to speed things along.

We know that in 2016, Republicans said that the next President should select the nominee to fill the Court vacancy. But, of course, Republicans are now manufacturing “reasons” that things are different now and they must get a 6-3 conservative court right away.

That will create a Supreme Court that rules by following their political ideology, instead of the law. The rollback will be used to destroy 70 years of moving the rights and equality for women, BIPOC, and LGBTQ+ forward. This will drag the United States back to Jim Crow. Discrimination and racism will, once again, become the “law of the land” and allow American conservatives and right-wing extremists to have society belong to “right thinking” White American men. Is this the America of equality we should return to?

Women will be property once again, with not right to control their own bodies. Their will be even more domestic abuse by the men who believe they alone have the rights guaranteed in the US Constitution. We know abortion will be illegal once again, and women thrust into poverty because they know – for whatever reason – they are not ready to raise a child. What will the Republican’s, from their anti-welfare beliefs, say to the impoverished women? They’ll be told that “it’s your problem, not ours.” I’m pro-life, but know any woman has the right to decide for themselves, without scorn. Is this America women’s lack of rights you want again?

American healthcare advances, meaning the ACA, will be rolled back, Millions, tens of million, will once more find they have no options to get even basic healthcare needs met. People with pre-existing conditions will be stopped from getting health insurance, or will pay excessively high premiums for limited benefits if they want health insurance. Free clinics will be where they have to turn. But free clinics, as wonderful as they are, will not be able to provide the same level of care. Medical debt will increase, destroying even more of the ability of people to keep their heads above water and survive. I have been under that kind of medical debt. It beats you down every day, making the future look bleak and unpromising. Is this the America of healthcare you want to live in?

Workers will see rollbacks to worker rights. Rights to equal pay, the right to unionize, workers compensation when you are injured on the job too. Likely, workers will find their rights to sue employers gone. Rights to paid leave will be removed, with medical and family paid leave at the head of the list. Corporations will be able to return to running sweatshops without fear. They could scale back on medical benefits, turn a blind eye to offering education benefits, overtime hours “reconfigured” to prevent paying overtime all together, and allowing hazardous working conditions. There’s more that could get changed, much more. Is this the America you want to work in?

Republicans love private Christian schools and will pass laws, that would be supported by a conservative Court majority, allowing the taking of funds provided to public schools to pay for a child to go to private schools. Court conservatives will be able to make pseudo-Christian beliefs in schooling the law of the land. We could see America fall back to racial education standards of “separate, but equal” for minorities. Money will talk and education will suffer greatly. Is this the America we want again?

Lastly, the possibility of a conservative court backing a fascist like Trump turning American into the evil fascist nation of this millennium. Your very existence held by one man, to do with as he whims. A nation where the common person will either tow-the-line or be severely dealt with. Your voice will be muffled. Your “incorrect” beliefs getting you removed from society to some “re-education” camp. Is this the political America you want to live in?

If you want to stop any of the potential outcomes from happening, then you better scream loud and hard to the US Senate to get them to stop. Be angry, I am and the Republican Senator of my State has already heard from me. Bombard your Republican Senators, if you have one, with your demands. Do it everyday if you have to until you get a satisfactory pledge that they won’t back approving a nominee to the court until after January 20, 2021!

This is a battle for the the very beating heart of America! Deciding to sit on the sidelines shows your support by your silence to Republicans. Do you care enough to fight for it?

Well, do you?

Until next time

Kayleigh McEnany

Donald Trump’s supposedly honest Press Secretary

Kayleigh McEnany has been the White House Press Secretary for Donald Trump since April 2020.

Kayleigh McEnany, Press Secretary

Kayleigh held her first press conference as Press Secretary on May 1, 2020. At that presser, Kayleigh made the statement that, “I will never lie to you. You have my word on that,” according to a Vox article. Further, the article states that this promise lasted a whole 15 minutes before she started her career as one of Donald Trump’s Liars Brigade (There is no “Liars Brigade” known to really exist. It is just a “turn of phrase.”).

From the Vox article, “McEnany’s first lie from the White House podium came in response to a question about comments President Donald Trump made earlier in the day characterizing Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden as “far more compelling” than the accusations made against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh during his confirmation hearings. Asked to flesh out Trump’s thinking, McEnany characterized the Kavanaugh allegations as “verifiably false.””

What is false is her words to the press. This behavior has continued every day since that first press conference. She’s has perfected lying, not answering questions, redirecting to a different subject, parsing Trump’s words to fit her purpose of speaking for Trump, and flat out ignoring questions completely. Her dances around what Trump really says and means are quite ugly.

On the Wikipedia page on Kayleigh, she is said to be a political commentator, lawyer, and author (I wonder if her book is even worth trying to read?). Training as a lawyer answers the question of where she learned to lie. Or maybe she learned as a Catholic schoolgirl? She is the product of elite private schools and Ivy League colleges (including Georgetown University, Oxford, and Harvard). Kayleigh has worked at CNN and Fox (where what she wanted was television face time, according to the Wikipedia page). She’s also worked on onetime Republican Governor Mike Huckabee’s show. Now there’s a stepping stone to being a strong right wing mouthpiece.

Kayleigh has grown up with the best of everything and can be called anything except an average American. Whatever Christian faith she follows, she must spend an awful lot of time praying for forgiveness for her sins of lying.

We can never expect her to be truthful, it’s not in her makeup.

Is the Outrage at the Film “Cuties” Valid?

Or are our knee-jerk opinions wrong?

For the record, I have not viewed the movie. I am relying on the information of two young people and media reports on the point of the movie.

The film “Cuties” have stirred up outrage in American society. Currently streamed on Netflix, the film and Netflix are being vilified. Is this vilification just, or is ignorance (as in not educated and informed) unfairly impacting the wave of hate against Netflix and the film’s maker?

I believe a proper view of the film will change the anger towards the film. Now, that’s not to say that there aren’t at least two scenes in the movie that are disturbing, IMO, but that has to be taken in proper context, as it was explained to me by a 21 year-old and a 19 year-old girls. There is a New York Times article that you may find informative.

The blame for the uproar can be laid at the door of Netflix. The poster they chose to promote the film is not the poster by the film’s maker (shown side-by-side below). But, first I offer a link to the scene causing people to say young girls are being sexualized (“Cuties” YouTube video), but I warn you – it is disturbing when viewed out of context.

Cuties film posters

On the left is the poster Netflix used to promote the film on their streaming service. On the right is the poster created for the film. Obviously there is a great difference in how the images form opinions. Netflix, being a capitalist corporation, wants the shock value to draw in renters of the film. Money was their only motive for using the poster on the left. Netflix caused the rash and uninformed opinions that caused the rage. It, along with the scene of the left poster that I saw, initially caused my own expressions of outrage. Then, I learned more.

Maïmouna Doucouré,a French filmmaker, produced “Cuties.” Sexualizing young girls was not her intent. First, Doucouré was very careful with the actors. Their parents were contacted by Doucouré before a word was said to any of the girls. The parents, after being fully informed about the intent of the film, gave their willing consent for their children to audition for the film. Second, each child selected, throughout the filming, had Doucouré carefully explain what would happen next and insured each child fully understood the reasoning behind the scene to be filmed and understood the ramifications in participating.

There are ongoing misconceptions about the film, based solely on the one scene linked above and the poster used initially by Netflix. Viewed on their own without context, it would be a reasonable reaction to have anger over the film. But, we have to understand the sources of our discomfort and the effects of echo chambers, especially on social media.

Whether we wish to acknowledge it or not, there are shows on American television that have intentionally caused children to be sexualized with only their parent’s consent and without the children’s consent. Take the show “Dance Moms” that ran for 8 seasons on Lifetime. This was a show centered around parents who put their young girls in dance competitions. The children were dressed up in skimpy outfits and performed dances similar to those in “Cuties.”

Dance Moms on Lifetime

Further, we are extremely comfortable with exploitation and sexualization of women and abuse of women in the shows and movies we watch. One of my sources told me that she has read comments saying that had young looking adult actresses been used instead of the young girls the film would be perfectly acceptable. The problem with that thinking is why don’t we care about women once they turn 18? Also, this anger becomes performative if we are fine with the images of apparent children being used for sexual gratification, just so long as it is legal and no “actual” children are being used. Why is it this film that has exposed so much of our discomfort, when other forms of explicit imagery that we see every day do not?

If you are so upset about the film based on the poster or scene I linked to, why have you not looked into media reports about the film maker’s intent in making the film? Yes, I had the negative knee jerk reaction, but have come to see things differently. Yes, the purpose of this film was to make the viewer uncomfortable and to make you want the sexualization of young girls to stop, because it is happening in countries around the world. We can’t end problems unless we see how they happen, which was the intent of the film maker. It behooves all of us to view the film or research the causes of systemic hyper-sexualization.

I don’t expect anyone to agree with me. In the end, the real reason we’re all so angry now is because this film criticized child sexualization, rather than participating in it.

Until next time

QAnon is Not #SavingOurChildren

Human Trafficking is a Real Problem, Not a Conspiracy

Tonight I’d like to introduce you to Babylon Jones, a.k.a. furiousbabs, an enthusiastic Zillennial activist who’s just about sick of the direction America’s headed in. Babylon will be authoring posts of interest about their passions, political outlook, and general relevant interests. -John Broge

#SaveOurChildren. It’s a tag that’s been rampant on social media over the last couple of months (perhaps longer, depending on what sources you consume), sometimes being spammed in the comments of totally unrelated posts in an effort to “raise awareness.” This disinformation campaign, spearheaded by QAnon leadership and carried out to the masses by your hysterical Aunt Barbara is muddying the waters and actively hindering the real fight against real human trafficking. Now, you might be asking “what’s this kid know about it? Is she a human trafficker?? Was she a victim???” Well, all I’ll say is that some kids were obsessed with keeping their Tamagotchis alive or having a foot spa day with some Orbeez, I was obsessed with learning about human trafficking. It’s still my life’s goal to be a federal prosecutor specializing in these types of cases. So, in this piece, I’m gonna start by setting the record straight – talking about what human trafficking really is, and perhaps more importantly, what it definitely isn’t. Then we’re gonna go over Pizzagate and why these kinds of conspiracies pop up at the times that they do. Finally, I’m going to discuss why the QAnon trafficking conspiracy is really so harmful, why it’s so effective for its target demographic, and yes, why it’s so darn infuriating to those of us actually in the know. 

Human trafficking is a business. Full stop. This is where the story starts and ends; it’s not an action movie, it’s not a conspiracy theory, and it’s not a political movement for either side of the spectrum. This business is global, it grows annually and exponentially, and it is run by people of all genders, nationalities, races, socioeconomic classes, and intelligence levels. Something insurmountably important to know, too, is that most human trafficking is not sex trafficking. Labor trafficking is more rampant than sex trafficking worldwide, including in the US (UNODC). Additionally, trafficking is woven into our lives – and woven right into the fabric of those GAP jeans your grandma bought you. Atlanta, GA is the fourth-largest human trafficking hub in the world (CTDC) and most big-box retailers have been using labor trafficking victims – including children – to manufacture their clothes and other products off and on for literally decades (LastWeekTonight). 

There are agencies – both official government-run ones and community-led alike – working every day to find and save trafficking victims and dismantle trafficking operations.Those trendy articles you’ve been seeing about “65 children saved from a human trafficking operation in Ohio!!!”? That happens every day around the world; it’s a constant battle. Now, I know we all love those juicy statistics, so I’ll give you some: the Polaris Project identified 22,326 victims and survivors of human trafficking last year; according to the Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative (CTDC), most victims of sex trafficking are recruited by an intimate partner, and while most victims of any type of trafficking are indeed female, for the 9-11 age bracket, 53% of victims are males. 

My final and super-important informative note on human trafficking is also about what it isn’t. Human trafficking and sex work are not the same thing. I mean this, whether we’re talking about the Red Light District in Amsterdam, a willing prostitute on a street corner in New Jersey, or a teacher who has an OnlyFans as a side hustle. Adults of all genders (since y’know, children can’t consent) who willingly engage in any form of sex work, including porn, prostitution, escort services, or sugaring, are not victims – they are not being exploited, and they are not tragedies of a debaucherous culture. If anything, sex trafficking is a byproduct of an unhealthy, patriarchal, sex-negative society wherein sex is something that “happens to” vulnerable populations and is “done by” powerful ones. 

Now let’s dive into the meat and potatoes of why we’re bothering to discuss human trafficking right this second (more than any other second). The “elite liberal pedophile underground sex trafficking ring” conspiracy from QAnon is not new, not even close. Hate to accuse people of plagiarism but, this crap started in the ‘80s. If you’ve never heard of the McMartin Preschool conspiracy, allow me to brief you: a mother with unaddressed mental health problems claimed that her son had been sodomized by his preschool teacher, and from there, a massive scandal involving preschools across the nation emerged. Parents (mostly conservatives) began insisting that their children were having their blood taken for Satanic rituals by the operators of this preschool exploitation ring, among other horrific claims (Reinhold). 

Fast forward a few decades to 2016, when the shiny “new” Pizzagate theory took hold. Since apparently Hillary Clinton’s emails are the topic that’s going to destroy the world, of course they’d come up here; basically, WikiLeaks released some emails between Clinton and her campaign chief, and 4chan (the even more white supremacist embryo of QAnon) trolls jumped on it immediately. There was a handkerchief identified as having a pizza-related map on it, the owner’s name was apparently an anagram for the French phrase “I love children,” and very long, stupid story short, eventually Trump’s supporter base was entirely convinced that there was an actual child sex trafficking ring being perpetrated via the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria. And I mean convinced; location owners received death threats (Young). Now here we are in 2020 – there are ostensibly child sex trafficking rings around every corner, including on the overstock website Wayfair, where cabinets named after missing children were allegedly being sold for tens of thousands of dollars, and where QAnon has convinced a gullible conservative fanbase that liberals are selling thousands of children – and more importantly, that King Trump is going to take those demons to church. 

So why is this narrative so incredibly effective? Well, the first reason has absolutely nothing to do with politics, and it’s very simple: your average Joe doesn’t know how to make heads or tails of a statistic. Like I said earlier, we all love statistics. They’re snappy and shocking, and often very, very misleading. Some people get statistics from wildly unreliable sources and then spout them as gospel; other times (more often), they use data from reputable sources, such as the ones I’ve already used here, but the reader has absolutely no context for what they’re looking at. For example, the Polaris source I used shows that sex trafficking occurs a lot more often than labor trafficking in the United States – “but how can that be?” you cry, since I just said earlier that labor trafficking occurs more frequently. First of all, the Polaris Project relies on reports to their hotline; a lot of labor trafficking victims don’t know they can or think they can’t afford to call someone for help. Also, there’s a concept in criminological measurement called the “dark figure.” This refers to the amount of crime that goes unreported, and trust me – the dark figure is big when it comes to trafficking (Pepinsky). Both of these things being said, it’s unfathomably easy to either twist or genuinely misread statistics if you don’t know what you’re talking about.

So we’ve got these sensational, enraging statistics about child sex trafficking that QAnon is spewing left and right, and perhaps the bigger piece to the effectiveness puzzle is the community for which this conspiracy has been carefully cultivated. Conservatives have a lot of anger; we all do, but specifically, conservatives have a lot of violent, generalized anger. This type of conspiracy is a perfect beacon for them – an invisible enemy to rally around? Sign Aunt Barbara up, man! BLM is gaining traction, leftists are annoyingly protected by like, “the law,” but by God, pedophiles are still universally hated; all the better if they’re on the left. And, disgustingly – all the better if they’re Jewish. Every conspiracy theory has a strong thread of anti-Semitism running through it (heard of the Rothschilds?), but how many times have you heard George Soros’s name pop up in the context of QAnon? Chances are, a lot. 

The final reason that this conspiracy is so effective is because, unfortunately, it’s very palatable. Crimes against children are one of the most abhorred acts in Western society, and we’re collectively extremely reluctant not to believe allegations about them. This brings me to why these conspiracies arise when they do – it’s a perfect demonization tactic. What was happening in the ‘80s? Well, a lot, but besides pet rocks and Reaganomics, conservatism was exploding; in 2016, obviously there was an election happening, and here we are in an election year again. There is no better way to make your enemy everyone’s enemy than by saying they’re hurting kids. 

I can tell you without doubt that QAnon is disabling the actual fight against human trafficking. Mainstream media constantly reporting on agencies’ sting operations renders those agencies largely ineffective in carrying out stings for at least a few months. We now have #MommaBears gearing up with their AKs ready to “do bad things to worse people,” not only potentially putting themselves in danger, but also potentially putting victims in danger if they decide to go do some vigilante justice with no idea what they’re doing (not even to mention we really do not need more things for conservatives to think they have a right to shoot at right now). Spamming #SaveOurChildren turns people away from learning about real human trafficking because they’re sick of hearing about the fake version, and now trying to do any kind of Google search about the subject pulls up mostly news stories – some condeming the movement, some spreading its message, almost none giving useful information. Another hidden consequence that most people don’t even want to consider is what the QAnon narrative does to the pedophile community – and yes, I’m sorry to tell you, there is a community. It’s not a valid part of the LGBT+ community (like some media sources are trying to convince you), but there are genuine communities of pedophiles trying to refrain from ever offending, including refraining from consuming child pornography. Hearing about how much they deserve to die is detrimental to their mental health, and may lead to increased suicide or may encourage them to just go ahead and offend, since everyone hates them anyway. 

Finally, I’m just gonna go on a little rant about why this “trend” is infuriating far beyond its concerning nature. How dare anyone use human trafficking victims as a political pawn? And I’m not even talking about Q leadership (we know they’re dirtbags anyway) – I’m talking specifically about the hysterical Aunt Barbaras. I’ve seen friends who’ve never said a peep about this issue suddenly flooding their own feeds with the latest “news” about the horror of child sex trafficking with a less-than-subtle chaser of what we should “do” about it – “did you know that 80% of trafficking victims have to cross an official border?? Makes you think…” They do not care about the labor trafficking crisis, nor the crisis of missing and murdered Indigenous women (which is becoming worse literally by the day), nor about adult victims of human trafficking, nor about the children being detained and “lost” by ICE – none of it, and to top it off, they have no idea what they’re talking about and have the audacity to lecture people who do. At its core, the QAnon conspiracy is a virtue signaling load of crap that gives white conservatives an excuse to be angry and feel protective about no one. Care about more than hypothetical white children – do better. 

As a final note, if you’d like to learn more about the real problem with human trafficking, do go ahead and research Operation Underground Railroad, the Polaris Project, Liberty Shared, the A21 Campaign, and the International Justice Mission. If you think you know about someone being trafficked, call the Polaris hotline at (888) 373-7888. Teach your kids how to be safe online, and learn about who your family members and friends are close with – even if it’s an intimate partner or a parent. Thanks for reading.

Sources: 

CTDC. “Global Data Hub on Human Trafficking.” Counter Trafficking Data Collaborative, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.ctdatacollaborative.org/

LastWeekTonight. “Fashion” [YouTube video]. HBO, 2015. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdLf4fihP78

Pepinsky, Harold. “The Growth of Crime in the United States.” American Academy of Political and Social Science. Retrieved from https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/000271627642300104

Reinhold, Robert. “The Longest Trial – A Post-Mortem; Collapse of Child Abuse Case: So Much Agony for so Little.” New York Times, 1990. Retrieved from https://www.nytimes.com/1990/01/24/us/longest-trial-post-mortem-collapse-child-abuse-case-so-much-agony-for-so-little.html

The Polaris Project. “2019 Data Report.” Polaris: Freedom Happens Now, 2019. Retrieved from https://polarisproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Polaris-2019-US-National-Human-Trafficking-Hotline-Data-Report.pdf

UNODC. “Global Report on Trafficking In Persons 2018.” United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2018. Retrieved from https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/glotip/2018/GLOTiP_2018_BOOK_web_small.pd

fYoung, Cathy. “‘Pizzagate’ Recalls the Debunked Child Sex Rings of the ‘80s and ‘90s.” Observer, 2016. Retrieved from https://observer.com/2016/12/pizzagate-recalls-the-debunked-child-sex-rings-of-the-80s-and-90s