The Fourth

I’m not feeling it this year.  To be honest, I haven’t felt much like celebrating July 4^th since tRump took office.  I felt more festive last year but not enough to do much more than watch the musical “1776”.  It’s been a favorite of mine, enjoying the songs and funnier scenes.  One part of that movie has always upset me and I’ll bet you can guess what it is:  the section wherein the legislators fight over whether the rights of slaves should be included in the Declaration.  It should have been but these were flawed men, slave owners many of them, and the topic would make up a separate post handily.

There is a poison spreading in our country.  This poison has always been there for at least 50 years but has now infected so much of our democracy that you can’t really ignore it anymore.  There are evil plotters out there dismantling our system of government, and they say they are patriots and Christians.  They are neither. 

Robert Reich wrote a column today about what it means to be a patriot: https://robertreich.substack.com/p/on-this-july-4-the-true-meaning-of?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share It’s an excellent piece and expresses exactly what I feel inside. 

As for what it means to be a real Christian, you’d have to follow and at least abide by the teachings of Jesus Christ.  To read the words of some of these so-called Christians, it’s easy to see that they are actually anti-Christian.  These are the folks who believe in forced birth but are against caring for the mothers and babies later.  They are the folks who would remove Social Security and Medicare.  They are the billionaires that don’t contribute to any charities and/or don’t pay taxes.  They are the ones perpetuating social injustice, white supremacy, and racism.

The recent actions of the “Extreme” Court and Rethuglicans in Congress run so counter to what the founding fathers hoped we’d be.  Those founding fathers weren’t perfect, don’t get me wrong.  Better days were coming as future politicians and judges began tinkering with the Constitution, adding more amendments along the way to provide protection and equality for everyone.  Now, though, it seems as if all the fundamental rights people had to fight for are in danger of being overturned by the rogue Court.

I used to love the Fourth, especially when I was little and unaware.  I loved the parades with their marching bands.  I loved going to the beach and playing in the water with my brother and cousins.  Best of all were the fire works when it got dark enough.  They were always spectacular.  Over the years, unpleasant truths were acquired but I still loved the fireworks.  I can’t even enjoy those anymore; they’re too much like bombs going off.  That’s in my nightmare scenario of what could happen here.

Why?  This is what Robert Barnes wrote in The Washington Post: ““The Supreme Court on Thursday said it will consider what would be a radical change in the way federal elections are conducted, giving state legislatures sole authority to set the rules for contests even if their actions violated state constitutions and resulted in extreme partisan gerrymandering for congressional seats.””

That means elections can be rigged to favor the party wanting to be in power, in this case the Rethuglicans.  They have been plotting this out for years and years.

Suppose the Democrats win in 2024 after SCOTUS overturns how we vote.  Rethuglican states can throw out the votes they don’t like and choose their own electors to deliver scam votes.  The will of the people won’t matter anymore.

From there, the Hartmann Report plays out the entire nightmare results https://hartmannreport.com/p/the-nightmare-scenario-scotus-is?r=e29jo&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email Massive protests, shootings of the protestors by Rethuglican supremacist militias, and eventual take-over of our democracy.  What happened in Germany in the 1930s is happening here, now.

And people are just going about their lives like nothing is amiss.

If we don’t start doing something, if we don’t start demanding that Congress pass legislature to protect our vote, our freedom is definitely doomed for everyone.

So.  Not celebrating the 4^th may be the last chance I have to protest the loss of our freedoms thanks to the rogue SCOTUS.  I fully expect some attempt to monkey with my vote in 2024 if Congress doesn’t act to protect our votes.