Oh to be 9 again

 

I was just reading through my newsletters, most of which were downers.  Later this morning, I’ll get newsletters from groups that focus more on positives.  I need to read about those things to counterbalance the despair I feel when I read the more mainstream stories.  Like this one in particular: Heather Cox Richardson wrote a piece yesterday that I didn’t have time to read until today: https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/#inbox/FMfcgzGpGddkngNTkZlGLvjKXgZvtNvc

She began by recalling that on June 20, 1964, a young civil rights volunteer named Andrew Goodman arrived in Mississippi to work with two other volunteers, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney.  They were there to help register black people to vote.  Jim Crow laws were still pervasive in the South and this was the beginning of the civil rights movement.  The Ku Klux Klan (KKK) was angered and threatened by the movement because they were white supremacists and didn’t want blacks voting.

The three young men visited a church that had been burned by the KKK because they dared open their doors to help register people of color to vote.  After they left, they were stopped by the sheriff of the town.  He was a member of the same KKK that terrorized and abused black people.  After spending a night in jail, the sheriff then took them to a secluded area where two carloads of supremacists were waiting.  That group of domestic terrorists killed those three young men and buried their bodies.  Justice was very late in coming.

In June, 1964, I was a carefree 9-year-old, completely unaware of what was going on in the country.  I was shielded from the news.  My Deaf parents didn’t watch TV unless there was a favorite show on.  In 1964, there was no close captioning and lipreading someone on TV was next to impossible.  So, we didn’t watch the news.  When we visited hearing relatives, national current events weren’t discussed, at least not when I was in earshot.  All us grandchildren just played joyfully outside in our grandparents’ yard.

Today, though, I am very much aware of what’s going on.  On top of that, I’ve been learning all the true history of our country that was never taught to me in school.  Sometimes I miss the days when I was blissfully unaware of national shenanigans.

Now, there is a disgraced former governor named Eric Greitens running for the Missouri State Senate.  I’d seen the name on Twitter the last day or so but didn’t have the time to look him up on Google.  I got an eyeful from Heather Cox Richardson, who reported that Greitens posted an ad advocating hunting down RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) with guns.  Richardson wrote: “In the ad, Greitens is armed with a shotgun and flanked with military personnel as they burst into a house. “Today, we’re going RINO hunting,” he says. “The RINO feeds on corruption and is marked with the stripes of cowardice,” he continues. “Join the MAGA crew. Get a RINO hunting permit. There’s no bagging limit, no tagging limit, and it doesn’t expire until we save our country.””

There’s a new breed of KKK mentality that’s become open and pervasive in this country.  There are people like Greitens, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Ted Cruz, Lauren Boehbert and too many others who support white supremacy, tRumpism and violence.  There are no consequences for the things they say and do, and so they are becoming more hateful and inflammatory day by day. 

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, a Republican, is one of two on the January 6^th investigation committee.  Long ostracized by his own family and GQP party, he is going to retire at the end of his term.  It will be a shame to lose him to another trumper but who can blame him for quitting politics when his wife receives a hateful letter threatening not only his life but hers as well and their 6-m0nth-old baby.

Just last week, Judge Luttig warned the country that tRump and his gang present a “clear and present danger” to our democracy.  The efforts to dismantle democracy from within is well under way.  There were no consequences for the plotters of the coup attempt on January 6^th so the GQP has become quite vocal about their plans to take over.  National Memo ran these two articles on GQP interference in Otero County, New Mexico’s election: https://www.nationalmemo.com/gop-sabotage-of-new-mexico-elections-is-a-warning-to-america/particle-1 and an opinion piece from CNN: https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/20/opinions/election-disinformation-republicans-trump-tribe-aftergut/index. It was the latest attempt by the GQP to interfere in an election and it surely will not be the last.

Today the January 6^th committee will have it’s fourth hearing.  Today, they will focus on the phony electors tRump’s people submitted to screw up the election count.  One of the witnesses is supposed to be Brad Raffensberger, who was Georgia’s secretary of state during the 2020 election.  I remember him well and all the stories about how tRump kept calling Raffensberger to find more votes to help tRump win Georgia.  Raffensberger refused and then had to put up with more harassment and threats from the GQP. 

The same was true for another witness from Georgia, Gabriel Sterling, who was the voting implementation manager.  I don’t remember him but apparently, he had a press conference in December 2020 and reported he’d gotten death threats and other harassment from his own party.  He felt that tRump and his gang put the Georgia GQP up to that loathsome behavior and complained that no one was speaking out against it.

A Georgia election employee named Wandrea ArShaye "Shaye" Moss received death threats too.

Rusty Bowers, who was Arizona’s House Speaker, is supposed to testify about tRump/Guiliani’s plot to ignore the election results and appoint their own fake electors to throw the election to TFG.

It continues to boggle my mind that with all these shenanigans being made public, there are no charges coming from the Department of Justice.  I really hope that once the hearings are concluded, Attorney General Merrick Garland does something before the midterm election in November.

Some days I wish I was 9 again.

 

The Third Hearing

I read Judge Luttig’s full statement which was released before his testimony before the January 6^th committee last Thursday.  It is so well thought out and also very chilling.  Our country is still in danger of losing our most precious right to vote.  Once we lose that, we’ve lost our democracy.  Judge Luttig’s statement is here: https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/22061497/jml-final.pdf

Today’s Bible Verse is very appropriate today:

What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his very soul? — Mark 8:36

As far as I’m concerned, tRump, his base, his family, and the GQP have all forfeited their souls lying, cheating, and committing acts of treason just so they could stay in power.

The fourth hearing was last Thursday and it’s taken me the weekend to wrap my mind around it.  It brought back so many horrific memories I have of watching the coverage on January 6^th.  I remember the violence of the mob, striking down police officers and beating them with American flags—of all things! —and other weapons.  I remember the poor officer caught between the doors, screaming for help as he was being crushed by the insurrectionists.

I heard them chanting “Hang Mike Pence” and saw footage of the gallows erected outside.  Other terrorists were calling for Speaker Pelosi to come out and the worst of their language was edited out.  I remember how that mob poured through the Capitol, endangering the lives of the legislators, staff, and visitors.  Those awful people desecrated the building, defecating and spreading their poop around, vandalizing property and just trashing the place.

It went on for hours and hours.

All of the came back as I watched and listened to Judge Luttig and Mr. Jacob give testimony and answer questions.  Judge Luttig spoke very slowly and carefully; he looked distressed to me and I thought it might have been because he was distraught about what happened.  He is a highly respected, conservative Republican judge and had found himself in the position of having to advise Vice President Pence about what his role was in certifying the vote.  I can only imagine how he must have felt, a patriot horrified by what had happened to the country since tRump became President.  To me, the Judge represents one of the last of the Grand Old Party.  They had morals and a code of behavior once upon a time.

The GQP now is totally lawless, fascist, and out of control.

It’s very clear from testimony just how close we came to losing the America I grew up in: a democracy where our votes counted and there was always a peaceful transition of power.  That’s all changed since the 6^th.  Now the legitimacy of all elections is called into question.  The Big Lie persists and persists and stupid people continue to believe it.

Judge Luttig’s warning was stark and frightening.  The coup goes on to this day.  After the 6^th, the GQP moved to a Plan B and began infiltrating local and state political offices.  They’ve invaded school boards, mayoralties, state legislatures and governor’s offices all around the country.  It’s scary.  Already there are Big Lie politicians talking about having the power to overturn an election when they don’t like the outcome.

America is a republic but it’s also a democracy.  We, the people, elect candidates to office.  It’s not supposed to be decided by one person or a committee of politicians.  And that’s the scary part.  I try to have hope that people will vote in November but I’m also aware that some have short memories.  Some move on to the next exciting story week-to-week.  It doesn’t help that the GQP tell people the investigation is a witch hunt that happened 18 months ago.

The insurrectionists need to be brought to justice, all of them and especially tRump.  The right-wing white supremacist extremist group Proud Boys are very up-front claiming that if they’d found Mike Pence, they would have killed him.  They would have killed Speaker Pelosi.  They came very close to capturing the Vice President.  They came within 40 feet of Pence as he and his family and staff were being evacuated by the secret service.

I can feel my mind boggling again.

I don’t understand why the Vice President didn’t denounce tRump and his cronies from the get-go.  I don’t understand how the threatened GQP members of Congress could criticize what happened one day and defend the insurrectionists the next.  They continue to support tRump’s claim that it was a just a protest that got a bit out of control. 

No, it wasn’t.  It was an attempt to overthrow our democracy.

It’ll happen again.  Robert Reich wrote a rather disturbing article about why the January 6^th hearings are NOT going to make a difference in GQP’s strategy to undermine and destroy our democracy.  Half this country is too lame-brained and gullible to believe it. https://robertreich.substack.com/p/why-the-january-6-committee-is-failing?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email&utm_content=share

 

God help our country.

Happy Heavenly Father's Day, Dad

 

My dad passed away in 2009 at the age of 80, just before he and Mom were to move in with us.  We’d just been to Maryland from New Jersey, to join my brother and Mom in a gentle intervention to get him to give up the car keys.  He had glaucoma and was nearly blind.  When I signed to him, I had to have my hands close up to his eyes.  He’d put his hands on my wrists to follow any movements I made to make sure he understood what I was signing. 

My mom and brother were scared to death because he continued to drive in such a condition. In fact, Mom wouldn’t even get in the car with him anymore.  He countered that they were in a rural area and he needed to drive to get necessities: groceries, gas, a lottery ticket.  To counter that, we suggested that he and Mom move into our house with their own private space.  We could drive Dad anywhere he wanted to go.  Ted knew that Dad loved to go on walks and mentioned how close we were to the parks.

Dad cried.  He put his arms around me and said: “My daughter, I’m so happy.”

But then he died.  Had he lived, he would have been 93 tomorrow.

This year, I am having many fond memories of Dad in spite of many times that we were on the outs.  It wasn’t Dad’s fault.  Mom had an undiagnosed mental health issue that plagued her throughout my childhood and adulthood.  She was verbally and physically abusive to my brother and me.  When we were very small, Dad would come home from work and whisk us away for an ice cream treat, a swim in the bay, or just a nice drive around town.

I was never afraid of Dad.  He and Mom would drink to excess and then get into these horrific fights that led to violence.  He never turned that kind of anger on me.  Mom did.  In the mid ‘70s, when I was about 22 or 23, she chased me with an ice pick.  She was drunk and in a rage.  I managed to get free and bolted from our apartment, taking refuge with friends.  Dad showed up the next day, apologizing for her behavior and begging me to come back.  He promised it wouldn’t happen again but I knew it would.  I didn’t go back and he left, crushed.

My Dad taught me to swim on those visits to the bay beach in our neighborhood.  When I was older, he taught me how to ride a big two-wheeler.  He proudly clapped his hands as I pedaled away down the street.  I felt as if I were flying.  He even tried to teach me how to drive, although that didn’t work out so well.

I have a vivid memory of a Father's Day/birthday celebration when I was about 12.  We went to a miniature golf course with plans to eat out at our favorite restaurant later.  However, when I moved out of the way for Mom to take her turn, I stumbled and fell onto a cracked pipe hidden by unmowed grass.  The pipe gashed my knee to the bone, although I didn't know that until later.

Off we went to the emergency room.  In shock and terrified, when I was brought back to be treated, I began crying and asking for Dad.  One of the nurses left to go to the waiting room and fetch Dad.  He sat on a stool by my head and held my hand while the doctor stitched up my knee.  He was calm and soothing, very protective, in spite of the paleness of his face.  I felt comforted and safe and stayed still until the doctor was done.  Dad said to me with his voice, "You are a brave girl.  I'm proud of you."

When I was growing up and into my teen years, he would tell me he was proud of me.  He complimented my housekeeping abilities and supported my musical abilities.  Have you seen the movie, Coda?  The hearing daughter loved music and her Deaf family came to watch her perform in a high school play.  It was the same when my parents came to watch me play the guitar and sing.  They looked around while other people were on stage, Mom signing “I’m bored” to Dad.  They could see lips moving but had no clue as to what was going on.  When it was my turn, they sat up straight and watched me closely even though they couldn’t hear a single note.

Dad was so thrilled when I became an interpreter for the Deaf.  He signed to me: “You understand Deaf World.  I’m so proud of you.”

I am remembering him today and smiling warmly.  Happy Father’s Day in Heaven, Dad.