Oh I agree completely. And I would argue that, as you suggest, the Civil War never ended. Sure, the 13th amendment may have ended slavery, but the 14th and 15th amendments were imposed under duress. Slave-owning white society may have been forced to say goodbye to slavery, or leave the country to Brazil, but that white society never agreed to those amendments and never agreed to give up their power over non-white society.
We call them “Republicans” because that’s where these relics have landed, but they are political tourists, fickle ones. After the Civil War, the party of the KKK was the Southern Democrats. LBJ’s Voting Rights Act caused the migration to the Republican Party. White racists and sexists go wherever they feel most comfortable and accepted, just like DT and his family were forced to leave New York, their lifetime home, for Florida.
It’s a question of culture in a struggle with morality.
The cultural history of the USA, and the world, is whites first, males first, straights first, and rich people first. White racism. Sexism. Boy-girl only genderism. and moneyism (plutocracy).
Morality is in a struggle with culture.
From our perspective, John Roberts is a moron. Donald Trump is a moron. The less morally developed members of society attach themselves to culture and tradition, because they don’t have the capacity, it seems, to gauge the morality of that tradition.
It’s DNA versus brains, cultural programming versus moral IQ.
Your racist cousins, Lucian and Shannon and Michelle, like my German-born father and his mother, my grandmother, just do not have the capacity to outgrow their cultural conditioning. Maybe it’s lack of courage. Maybe it’s lack of intellectual drive. Maybe it’s lack of brain power. But whatever it is, something is missing.
We are all One. All of humanity is one consciousness, in harmony with the consciousness of the world and nature and its creatures. Being all of the same cloth and fabric, that makes each of us equal. The blood cells are not superior to the nerve cells which are in turn superior to skin cells. In the body of humanity, one type of person is not superior to another, all are needed. But explain that to white men who have grown up believing, and being told, that they are superior to or better than or come before or are favored over people who are non-white or female.
Culture is like an automated computer program, or a robot gone amok, like Hal in 2001. These people operate like an automated system to entrench their programming. In other words, they do this in their sleep. Maybe that’s why they call morally awake people “woke.“ The Republicans are just a robotic machine, they don’t care about democracy, they don’t care about humanity, they don’t care about justice and liberty. They give all that stuff lip service, but when it comes right down to the real world, they are anti-democratic, anti-justice, anti-freedom, anti-liberty. The entire time I’ve known him, which means my entire life, my dad’s fix for any social issue is to legislate it. It’s the authoritarian m.o. Dictate the answer, and force everyone to abide by it. John Roberts and my dad could easily be friends, they see the world the same way. Use social compliance to regulate behavior. These people are still in kindergarten. The question is this: do we want the kindergartners to be running the world, the USA? I don’t think so.
Once upon a time we might have believed our justice system would serve us as a final defense against authoritarianism, but McConnell (as have others before him) has ensured that this system is just as untrustworthy as all the others whose walls have been breached by Trumplicans.
Your last line says it all: "The only question left is when the other side will stop using words to attack our laws and pick up their guns." I have dreaded this ever since moving to the South six years ago...
That quote from Chief Justice Roberts gets to the heart of a big, big problem: “the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” It ignores the glaring truth that in a racist system, discriminating against white people is not the same as discriminating against people of color. Likewise, in a patriarchal system, discriminating against men is not the same as discriminating against women. Power imbalances matter and have to be acknowledged. Right now in my state (MA) there's a conservative group is challenging the right of the Wellesley Public Schools to create a safe space for students of color to discuss their concerns. It's not only OK, it's *necessary* for people of color, and women, and members of other discriminated-against groups to sometimes talk among them/ourselves -- just as it's necessary for workers to exclude management from union-organizing meetings. A depressing number of progressives, mostly but not entirely white and male, don't seem to get this. Until the playing field is really level, the same "rules" can't be applied to both those with privilege and those without.
FDR warned us about fear, unbridled, and irrational. Give Republicans Alpha-Evil status and you will create fear that will ramp up Democrats and terrify Republicans. We're not going back to the 1860's and we are not going to topple Brown V Board of Education. John Roberts is not a closet Confederate and neither is Neil Goresuch. Both men harbor a tough conservative stance, but they are not judicial suicides. (Justice Roger Taney?) The mere fact that you detail their efforts at vote suppression and you grasp where this might go should be enough to demonstrate the majority of adults understand Republican's thinking that you previously described as a cult. Most Republicans are not fanatics and do not want an end to freedom. Many follow Trump for reasons that have nothing to do with segregation or defeating blacks. They follow him from a loss of labors once comfortable status, from a feeling that America is in economic decline outside the big costal cities. Dangerous narcotics and how they kill so many in rural America is a bigger concern than suppressing Black votes. In Reno where I live, the Trump crowd pine for the golden times when the casinos were red hot and everything was safe and comfortable. Outside speculators have put rents through the roof and rich Californians have taken over everything and Casinos in other states have reduced downtown Reno to a empty lot with tacky statues, and no jobs. Mitch McConnell's fever dream of seeing the South Rise again will never become real. In 2022 when educated white southerners see blacks being denied the vote and understand the end product of Republican efforts, these whites will vote Democrat as they did in 2008 and in 2020. Extremism always defeats itself. Remember, even a bigot can be offended by cruelty and hatred. Millions of whites took to the streets after George Floyd's death, most never associated with blacks but loathed Derek Chauvin's casual murder. Kevin McCarthy's groveling to Trump fools no one and be certain northern courts can and will prosecute the Trump Crime Family. Republicans are not invincible and their want for the old WASP glory days will be deflated by a generation of kids who instinctively hate them, Fox, News and their vulgar and cynical corrupt leaders.
My husband is a perinatologist. He’s responsible for two lives, at minimum, with each pregnancy (multiples are a routine for his practice). The Anti-abortion stance is amoral and those activists will tell you that a pregnancy threatening the life of a mother (EVEN WHEN THE PREGNANCY IS NONVIABLE) is just “tough luck for her.” I know—I’ve asked. They fancy themselves on the moral high ground when nothing could be further from the truth. The people who have to struggle with IVF, etc, etc… spend a fortune getting pregnant, often only to be confronted with a GAMBLE on their best chances for a healthy term pregnancy; multiples can spell disaster. Yet, improving their chances by going for a reduction has become difficult/impossible without traveling out of state. How would you like to be forced to carry a pregnancy from rape or incest? Or without the means to care for the family you already have? Pregnancies carry a lot of risk—that fact has made my husband’s practice very busy. To have non medical zealots making health decisions for strangers is absolutely lunatic.
Oh I agree completely. And I would argue that, as you suggest, the Civil War never ended. Sure, the 13th amendment may have ended slavery, but the 14th and 15th amendments were imposed under duress. Slave-owning white society may have been forced to say goodbye to slavery, or leave the country to Brazil, but that white society never agreed to those amendments and never agreed to give up their power over non-white society.
We call them “Republicans” because that’s where these relics have landed, but they are political tourists, fickle ones. After the Civil War, the party of the KKK was the Southern Democrats. LBJ’s Voting Rights Act caused the migration to the Republican Party. White racists and sexists go wherever they feel most comfortable and accepted, just like DT and his family were forced to leave New York, their lifetime home, for Florida.
It’s a question of culture in a struggle with morality.
The cultural history of the USA, and the world, is whites first, males first, straights first, and rich people first. White racism. Sexism. Boy-girl only genderism. and moneyism (plutocracy).
Morality is in a struggle with culture.
From our perspective, John Roberts is a moron. Donald Trump is a moron. The less morally developed members of society attach themselves to culture and tradition, because they don’t have the capacity, it seems, to gauge the morality of that tradition.
It’s DNA versus brains, cultural programming versus moral IQ.
Your racist cousins, Lucian and Shannon and Michelle, like my German-born father and his mother, my grandmother, just do not have the capacity to outgrow their cultural conditioning. Maybe it’s lack of courage. Maybe it’s lack of intellectual drive. Maybe it’s lack of brain power. But whatever it is, something is missing.
We are all One. All of humanity is one consciousness, in harmony with the consciousness of the world and nature and its creatures. Being all of the same cloth and fabric, that makes each of us equal. The blood cells are not superior to the nerve cells which are in turn superior to skin cells. In the body of humanity, one type of person is not superior to another, all are needed. But explain that to white men who have grown up believing, and being told, that they are superior to or better than or come before or are favored over people who are non-white or female.
Culture is like an automated computer program, or a robot gone amok, like Hal in 2001. These people operate like an automated system to entrench their programming. In other words, they do this in their sleep. Maybe that’s why they call morally awake people “woke.“ The Republicans are just a robotic machine, they don’t care about democracy, they don’t care about humanity, they don’t care about justice and liberty. They give all that stuff lip service, but when it comes right down to the real world, they are anti-democratic, anti-justice, anti-freedom, anti-liberty. The entire time I’ve known him, which means my entire life, my dad’s fix for any social issue is to legislate it. It’s the authoritarian m.o. Dictate the answer, and force everyone to abide by it. John Roberts and my dad could easily be friends, they see the world the same way. Use social compliance to regulate behavior. These people are still in kindergarten. The question is this: do we want the kindergartners to be running the world, the USA? I don’t think so.
So as an older black woman, I can expect to only have the "rights" of of my 1800's ancestors by 2030, if I'm allowed to live until then ...
Once upon a time we might have believed our justice system would serve us as a final defense against authoritarianism, but McConnell (as have others before him) has ensured that this system is just as untrustworthy as all the others whose walls have been breached by Trumplicans.
Your last line says it all: "The only question left is when the other side will stop using words to attack our laws and pick up their guns." I have dreaded this ever since moving to the South six years ago...
That quote from Chief Justice Roberts gets to the heart of a big, big problem: “the way to stop discriminating on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” It ignores the glaring truth that in a racist system, discriminating against white people is not the same as discriminating against people of color. Likewise, in a patriarchal system, discriminating against men is not the same as discriminating against women. Power imbalances matter and have to be acknowledged. Right now in my state (MA) there's a conservative group is challenging the right of the Wellesley Public Schools to create a safe space for students of color to discuss their concerns. It's not only OK, it's *necessary* for people of color, and women, and members of other discriminated-against groups to sometimes talk among them/ourselves -- just as it's necessary for workers to exclude management from union-organizing meetings. A depressing number of progressives, mostly but not entirely white and male, don't seem to get this. Until the playing field is really level, the same "rules" can't be applied to both those with privilege and those without.
FDR warned us about fear, unbridled, and irrational. Give Republicans Alpha-Evil status and you will create fear that will ramp up Democrats and terrify Republicans. We're not going back to the 1860's and we are not going to topple Brown V Board of Education. John Roberts is not a closet Confederate and neither is Neil Goresuch. Both men harbor a tough conservative stance, but they are not judicial suicides. (Justice Roger Taney?) The mere fact that you detail their efforts at vote suppression and you grasp where this might go should be enough to demonstrate the majority of adults understand Republican's thinking that you previously described as a cult. Most Republicans are not fanatics and do not want an end to freedom. Many follow Trump for reasons that have nothing to do with segregation or defeating blacks. They follow him from a loss of labors once comfortable status, from a feeling that America is in economic decline outside the big costal cities. Dangerous narcotics and how they kill so many in rural America is a bigger concern than suppressing Black votes. In Reno where I live, the Trump crowd pine for the golden times when the casinos were red hot and everything was safe and comfortable. Outside speculators have put rents through the roof and rich Californians have taken over everything and Casinos in other states have reduced downtown Reno to a empty lot with tacky statues, and no jobs. Mitch McConnell's fever dream of seeing the South Rise again will never become real. In 2022 when educated white southerners see blacks being denied the vote and understand the end product of Republican efforts, these whites will vote Democrat as they did in 2008 and in 2020. Extremism always defeats itself. Remember, even a bigot can be offended by cruelty and hatred. Millions of whites took to the streets after George Floyd's death, most never associated with blacks but loathed Derek Chauvin's casual murder. Kevin McCarthy's groveling to Trump fools no one and be certain northern courts can and will prosecute the Trump Crime Family. Republicans are not invincible and their want for the old WASP glory days will be deflated by a generation of kids who instinctively hate them, Fox, News and their vulgar and cynical corrupt leaders.
My husband is a perinatologist. He’s responsible for two lives, at minimum, with each pregnancy (multiples are a routine for his practice). The Anti-abortion stance is amoral and those activists will tell you that a pregnancy threatening the life of a mother (EVEN WHEN THE PREGNANCY IS NONVIABLE) is just “tough luck for her.” I know—I’ve asked. They fancy themselves on the moral high ground when nothing could be further from the truth. The people who have to struggle with IVF, etc, etc… spend a fortune getting pregnant, often only to be confronted with a GAMBLE on their best chances for a healthy term pregnancy; multiples can spell disaster. Yet, improving their chances by going for a reduction has become difficult/impossible without traveling out of state. How would you like to be forced to carry a pregnancy from rape or incest? Or without the means to care for the family you already have? Pregnancies carry a lot of risk—that fact has made my husband’s practice very busy. To have non medical zealots making health decisions for strangers is absolutely lunatic.