There was yet another school shooting two Mondays ago, at a Christian school in Nashville, TN. Three little kids and three adults were shot and killed by yet another rampaging person trying to murder as many people as possible. The police responded quickly, thankfully, and killed the shooter.
And what was the response of Rethuglican lawmakers in Washington? Crickets.
But some of the Rethug legislators in TN did say something, mostly having to do with a cowardly it sure was horrible but "we're not gonna fix it." Cowardly because they all depend on their campaign contributions from the National Rifle Association. I knew nobody was going to do anything productive. The best the Rethugs could offer was more hypocritical and useless “thoughts and prayers”.
Something very encouraging happened the other day. Thousands of young people, the Gen Z folk, walked out of their high schools and colleges and began to march. They were joined by other supportive adults but these were mostly the young.
I was so proud of them. They reminded me of my generation once upon a time. It was a time when we Boomers were young, had enough of Establishment ways, and took to the streets. Gen Z were on a march to save their lives. They’d had enough of Rethuglican excuses and deflections and denials. Now they wanted action. They were amazing.
They flooded the capitol building, where most of the legislators there just brushed right by them. There was one State Assemblyman that did agree to meet with them and why he did, I couldn’t begin to guess. He was the most useless Rethuglican spokesman ever. All he did was ask the young people to show him which firearm they’d be most comfortable being shot with. What the fuck was that?
Three legislators inside interrupted the session briefly to support the protestors and they were promptly kicked out. The angry Rethug majority threatened to expel them permanently. They voted to do so and then truly showed their racist colors! Two of the legislators were young Black men. The other was a middle-aged white woman. Two were expelled; one was not. Guess who. If you guessed only the Black guys were expelled, you’d be spot on.
They were initially accused of instigating an insurrection ala January 6th. Then I guess the charge was disorderly behavior. But still: why was the white woman spared?
So, does the Tennessee state government reject the First Amendment? Or is it only when it’s the minority objecting to the majority’s way of doing things?
And while we’re talking about disruptive behavior, why do we still have traitors and legislators who engaged in treasonous behavior still service in the nation’s House and Senate?
This is in-your-face-we-don’t-give-a-fuck-how-it-looks fascism, racism, suppression, and repression going on right out in the open for everyone to see.
Rev. Barber might ask: “What are we going to do with this?”
Our votes aren’t enough. People need to be speaking up and pulling a Howard Beale: “I’m as mad as hell and I’m not going to take this anymore.” We need to get into “good trouble” like the Tennessee Three. We need to be joining with other organizations that are fighting fascism and the attacks on democracy. We need to start paying attention to what’s happening around us.
I felt better this morning and into the afternoon when I began reading and hearing about the pushback going on over what happened to the two Black legislators. I’ve been reading articles today in which the Tennessee Assembly is condemned for an illegal action in violation of the Constitution’s First Amendment.
One of the expelled legislators is from the Nashville area and their city council is moving to reinstate Mr. Jones to his seat. They are outraged by what happened.
Mr. Pearson is from the Memphis area and there’s no word on what will happen with that council. He should be reinstated too.
I will not set foot in any fascist state. Increasingly more and more red states like Florida, Texas, North Carolina, and now Tennessee are going on my do-not-go-there list.
We are having issues with spreading fascism because once the Rethugs began to realize they weren’t going to be able to steal elections by crying they’d been cheated of a win, they began stacking the school boards, township councils, city councils, and state legislators with ultra-right wing conservative and/or evangelical MAGA QAnoners. Now we have these people trying to run democracy into the ground.
I got an email from an organization called Run for Something. They are encouraging that WE start running for these positions too. I thought about Rev. Barber again. “What are we going to do with this?” I thought about what I could do. I saw that there would be a position on my district’s school board, and I decided I would run for it.
We must DO something.Other worthy articles I read yesterday and today:
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