A Political Peace Treaty – Or Not
“The Courage To Be Free” is Gov. Ron DeSantis’ campaign BS book that he hopes will propel him from his authoritarian throne in Tallahassee to the gold toilet just off the Oval Office that was left by a former extremist president. He tries to scare us, saying that, “The threat to freedom is not limited to the actions of governments, but also includes a lot of aggressive, powerful institutions hellbent on imposing a woke agenda on our country.”
A woke agenda? Imposed? Yikes!
He’s talking about enemies of freedom. Bad guys. ” . . . entrenched elites that have driven our nation into the ground.” They, “control the federal bureaucracy, lobby shops on K Street, corporate media, Big Tech companies and universities.”
Wow! That’s a lot of entrenched elites doing a lot of driving into the ground.
These bad guys, he says, “use undemocratic means to foist everything from environmental, social and governance (E.S.G.) policies on corporations, forcing as well critical race theory on public schools.” It’s, “an attempt to impose ruling class ideology on society.”
Holy smokes! These guys do E.S.G.? In public? And they force CRT on innocent children? And they’re imposing ruling class ideology on society? That sounds awful.
I find myself feeling sorry for DeSantis, wondering if Mommy and Daddy didn’t come to his room when he screamed in the night in fear of the monsters in the closet and the boogeyman under his bed. They left little Ronny in a terror that he never got over.
He has carried his terror and his angry fictions with him all this way and he still sees monsters and boogeymen, but now they aren’t just in the closet and under the bed. Now they’re in classrooms, libraries, in doctors’ offices, in voter registration offices and at Disney World. Indeed, they lie in wait in DC meeting rooms, hiding under conference tables and in the cabinet under the large screen TV where they keep the coffee service. Poor Ronny!
But the thing is that his boogeymen and monsters not only don’t exist, but he is using his fear of these fictions to harm you, to take away your freedom. He’s already taken away voting rights, women’s healthcare, education, books from the library and more. So, you already know some of the harm he could do if he were given the power to attack our entire nation in his childish fight against his night demons. You better make sure that little Ronny DeSantis doesn’t get the key to the room with that gold toilet.
Don’t you think it’s time for our country to end extremist driven political and cultural wars, like DeSantis’ hateful idiocy? Me, too, so here’s my proposal.
Resolved: that all members of all political parties will:
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– Refrain from all attempts to limit voting rights.
– Nevermore discriminate in any way to limit or marginalize citizens on the basis of race, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, boxers or briefs, N95 masks or knowledge of CRT (if any).
– Never prohibit food or water from being given to citizens waiting in line to vote.
– Never require that schools teach a sanitized, race-blind version of American history to “protect” fragile White children and that they instead tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
– Never attack our democracy in any way.
– Never make vague, groundless accusations, like “entrenched elites that have driven our nation into the ground” and “aggressive, powerful institutions hellbent on imposing a woke agenda on our country,” or any other meaningless and inflammatory stupid stuff.
– Never demonize immigrants or those hoping to be immigrants. That means no replacement theory BS.
– Never emit hateful dog whistles.
– Never forget to take their meds every day so that they have the strength to control the Tourette-like M.S.U. (Make Shit Up) impulse.
– Immediately say, “I’m sorry” when they say something false, rude and mean, because they know that if they don’t say “I’m sorry,” the monsters and the boogeymen will be released from the closet and from under the bed and not even Ghostbusters will be able to stop them from a full assault on decency.
Oh, wait. No need to make this about all members of all political parties, because only Republicans are doing these hateful, stupid things. It’s amazing that people can still be sold magic beans and snake oil claimed to cure all ills.
Only the Republicans have sucked in millions of dollars of PPP money for their corporations, enjoyed debt forgiveness and have now killed student loan forgiveness.
Only the Republicans want to censure and impeach officials for the crime of breathing while being a Democrat. And worse, for doing their jobs.
Only Republicans are cheering Supreme Court decisions that reverse decades of progress, that eliminate rights and attack the foundation of democracy, that open the door to discrimination and religious intolerance and put the lie to the justices’ claim of fidelity to stare decisis.
Only the Republicans are attacking separation of church and state relentlessly.
Only the Republicans are cheering Ronny DeSantis and his boyhood lunacy.
Only the Republicans hate Americans like you.
To quote my friend Ed Gurowitz:
To effect real change, the majority [that’s us] must rebel – not by force of arms but by raising our voices in the media, at the voting booth, and everywhere else. The Right holds its power by lies and deceit. To counter that, the majority [that’s us] must stand up and speak out for the truth.
We’re in a clash not of right versus left, but of right versus wrong, So, it’s rebel or be overrun by forces of anger, hatred, discrimination, lies and deceit.
Political peace treaty? Nah, I don’t think so.
Independence Day Follow-ups
Read Richard Jacobs’ piece, Our Glorious 4th of July Heritage: Keeping It Working for All of Us. You’ll understand that it’s time for each of us to enter the arena.
And have a look at John Pavlovitz’s excellent post, July 4th: Mourning the America We Could Have Had. You’ll grow an enhanced and proper disdain for performance patriotism.
Finally, from Steve Sheffey’s July 2 post:
” . . . make July 4 the day you start actively participating in the democracy we are celebrating by participating in the electoral process. Stop pretending that both parties are the same and stop treating bipartisanship and non-partisanship as virtues. Elections are partisan by nature and design, and the right to hold free and fair elections is what we are celebrating on Tuesday.”
Gotta love that –
“start actively participating in the democracy we are celebrating by participating in the electoral process.”
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Voting. It’s a good thing.
Today is a good day to be the light.
______________________________
- Our governance and electoral corruption and dysfunction and our ongoing mass murders are all of a piece, all the same problem with the same solution:
- Fire the bastards!
- The days are dwindling for us to take action. Get up! Do something to make things better.
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