The Supreme's Sing A Reactionary Song: Saturday Political Soap Box 187

The Supreme Court is a'fixin' to change.

Justice Anthony Kennedy is retiring on July 31st.

This will give the Russian influenced narrow electoral college winner, Donald J. Trump, a second Supreme Court Justice.  Justice Kennedy had a reputation for rare jogs off the reservation (gay marriage, Roe v. Wade), and this change will put a lock on a reactionary agenda.

Most would say conservative, but I believe reactionary would be a closer fit.  Their primary goal is to turn back time, by taking away hard-fought-for rights, whether it's women's rights, voting rights, minority rights, and more.  They will consistently side with large corporations and the wealthy. 

Justice Kennedy was no prize.  He sided with the reactionary majority much more often than not.  His vote could be counted on with most decisions involving corporate power,  He wrote the Citizens United decision that helped flood our system with big money donors.  He was no friend to the working man.  He was the swing vote that selected Bush, Jr. to be President of the United States.

There was some consternation that Justice Kennedy chose this time to retire, and did not wait a few months when election results would make more evident the intent of the American people.  Surprise!  Mr. So-called Moderate is more tied to the Trump administration than perhaps any other justice  Turns out, and this is so amusing that we didn't know this earlier, that his son has been Trump's primary contact at Deutsche Bank in Germany, the only bank  that would lend him money for quite a stretch (not including private lenders, like Russian oligarchs).

This will not be a significant change then, except that it shores up the majority for quite awhile, as Trump will pick a consistent reactionary, one who is much younger, and could theoretically serve for decades,

And this might not be the only one.  If one of the four moderate/liberal judges leaves, the majority could be locked at 6 to 3. 

So what will this mean to the future?

Well, it's always hard to know for sure, but really, the future looks bright,  This last week, the incredibly talented Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez upended the number four ranked Democrat in the House by decisively winning the Democratic primary in her Congressional District.  A young, dedicated, hard-working progressive replaced a moderate Democrat who believed in the power of special interest money.  She was outspent ten to one, and she still won.

The future is bright, and the future is progressive!

But none of that may matter if the Court is solidly reactionary.  We may be faced with a period where great progressive legislation is finally passed, only to be subsequently overturned by a reactionary Supreme Court.

Can Democrats stop this nomination, at least delay it until after the election when they might gain a majority in the Senate?

No.  I don't think they can.

They are counting on the McConnell  Rule, that you can't vote on a nominee close to an election.  Ha!  Like that's a real rule!  That was just a power play by the Republicans.  And now they'll reverse course, without a sense of guilt or shame.

They are counting on a couple of Republican women to hold out on principle, notably Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.  Ha!  They'll cave with the Republican majority.  It's the Democrats who will have trouble staying united.  Some of their blue dogs are already getting queasy.

For my Christian Right friends who think this means Roe v. Wade will go down, you may be right.  But it won't do what you think it will do.  States will still have the power to allow abortion or not, and there will be states that will keep it.  So the total number of abortions will probably rise instead of fall, especially as birth control access is interfered with, and more schools switch to the ineffectual sex education substitute of abstinence-only.

Also increasing will be the number of back-alley abortions that will physically damage women, and lead to more deaths.

Not to mention the increase in mortality due to other actions of a reactionary Supreme Court.  Fewer environmental regulations lead to a more polluted environment which will kill more people.  Rejecting plans to increase health care coverage will lead to inadequate care and more deaths.  Fewer workplace regulations will lead to more deaths.

I know.  I paint a grim picture.  But you know what?  It is grim.

Grim, but not hopeless. 

Stay tuned. 

Cliff Notes: Flash Fiction Friday

I stand on the edge of a cliff.

The wind is blowing hard.  My jacket flaps, the loose sleeves snaping back and forth, a blue wave saluting the sixty foot fall down towards the Atlantic.    The cliffs are bare, just layer upon layer of sedimentary rock alternating with limestone rocks.  Grays and sivers and browns, with only a few juts for seabirds to perch.

A fall would definitely be a death plunge.  So why do I stand at the edge?  My feet are an inch away from dangling off.  My heart is pounding hard.  Keeping my vision from turning red is hard.  I am dizzy.  The world spins.  The next gust could disorient me, and then I don't know if I could stop myself from going over.

I am not alone.  There are dozens at the cliff's edge.  Some stand a little farther back than me, but most do not.  Some are sitting on the edge, their legs from the knee down pumping back and forth as if they are on a playground swing.

A loud whistle blows.  It startles me and my reactions lurch my upper body forward.  It is the park ranger warning us to get away from the cliff's edge.  I see the stark cliff face by looking directly below me.  I see a small rock jut twenty feet below.  Maybe I wouldn't fall instantly into the ocean.  Maybe that jut would catch me, and my body would land on that.  Or maybe I would bounce off it and arc into a deeper part of the ocean.  It wouldn't matter.  Once I hit the jutting rock, I wouldn't know anything that happened after that.

The pull is irresistible.  What's wrong with me?  I'm not suicidal.  I'm not a lemming.  Why can't I stop thinking about going over the edge?

It takes everything I can muster to take one step back, to move away from the abyss.  I hear my family calling out, "C'mon, Tom!  Get away from there!  You're scaring us!"

I look at the others who stay at the edge.  Are they oblivious?  Or do they hear the same siren call that I do?

Someone grabs my shoulder.  I turn to see who it is.  It's my wife.  She hates the edge, but she has dared it to pull me back.  My first look at her is puzzled.  Why?  Why are are you here?  Why are you pulling me away from what is beckoning me?

The look of worry emanating from her shakes me from my stupor.  I hug her fiercely and holding her, we move to the central pathway,  away from the cliff's edge.

No one fell that day.  At least, not while I was there.  But when you operate at the cliff's edge, you never know who may fall away.

Throwing It Back Thursday Style!

My week-long celebration of older features continues, with the return of Throwback Thursday!

For this, I used three of the oldest pictures on my phone.

My father, Eugene Evertt Strait, who passed in September of 2013, kept his mental facilities up until the end, even though his physical capabilities deteriorated.  He loved playing games, especially RummiKube, as pictured here, and Poker Bingo, a game that he created a game board for.  He never stopped being tough to beat.  You think he would show some mercy to us youngins', but he never did.

I miss him every day.

In November 2012, Benjamin played Little John in Young Robin Hood, a play that I co-wrote with Karissa Cook.  He and the other young people put in fantastic performances, and I think they had a great time.  I thank the Flying Dragon for indulging me in letting me write and direct this musical, and I thank Karissa for all the hard work she put into ensuring its success.

Steve Bean and I shared a vision of turning a property on the Okefenokee Heritage Center campus, The Studio, into a usable facility for the performing arts.  I am happy to say that it is presently being used that way, particularly by Purlie Productions. 

Steve was a good friend and a  tremendous Executive Director for the Okefenokee Heritage Center.  His kindness and loving relationships were an essential part of my church, Grace Episcopal Church, and helped transform into one of the most loving and open parishes in South Georgia.

Like my father, he has also passed, but his accomplishments and kindnesses live on.  

Wandering Wednesday is Back, Baby!

Is a part of me still in Ireland?  You better believe it!

It's back! One of my most popular blog features!  Wednesday Wanderings!

Ok, that's not entirely true.  It actually ranks quite low in views compared to some of my other kinds of posts.  Stuff with BenJerMan - that gets a lot of views.  As irritating as it may be to some, my political stuff gets a lot of views.  Things where I shut up and mostly show pictures do quite well.  Well, Wednesday Wanderings are more popular than my poetry.  That's something, right?

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My work status for the next two weeks is on call.  Get that, my work buddies?  Let me know if something comes in.  And then give me time to sober up, get dressed and get in.

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Speaking of sober, I fell in love with a drink in Ireland.  Guinness? Whiskey?  Ale?  Nope. Orange Soda!  Turns out of the ten most popular soft drinks in Ireland, three are orange sodas!  And, if you get one with your meal, they're more likely to put ice in your glass!  Viva la ice! I know, my love of ice makes me hopelessly American. But that's okay.  I'd rather explain to Europeans why I like ice than try to explain how America elected a dim-witted racist narcissist like Trump.

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Funny thing on the way to worrying about Trump - turns out that the stealing of Obama's Supreme Court nomination may be almost as destructive as the orange democracy-wrecking ball.  Expect many decisions that benefit corporations and the wealthy, and decisions that narrow and restrict democracy and access to it, that promote and encourage those who would discriminate.

This means when Progressives take control of the Presidency and Congress (which I believe they will), their initiatives will be reversed by a profoundly reactionary court.  We could actually pass Medicare for all, only to have it taken away by a Supreme Court that just hates to see everyone have access.  We could try to combat global warming only to have those initiatives over-turned.  And on and on it will go.

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We're gearing up the college application process for Benjamin.  Isn't that just crazy?

The cost of college is so high, I have no idea how anyone does it.  He should have Zell Miller level Hope Scholarship (covering tuition), but room and board are higher for one year than my college was for all four years, tuition and room and board COMBINED!

Student loans are like putting a massive yoke around their necks, dragging them down for the rest of their lives.  I don't know why Americans are willing to accept that.

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We're watching The Handmaid's Tale.  We at first had to catch up, settling in after our Ireland trip.  We're now caught up and can't stand the wait each Wednesday for a new episode.  The parallels to what's been happening in our country to what's happening on that show are eerie and spine-tingling. It's like a scary vision of the future where Mike Pence is President.

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For those who want me to end on an up note, here's another picture of Ireland.

Better yet, heeeere's Benjamin!

Wanderingly yours,

T. M. Strait

The Return of the Monday Musing!!!

It's been quite awhile since I wandered, tidbitted or mused

So, here I go, with the return of a Monday Musing!


Topic #1

My work (accounting, that is) is subsiding a bit, and won't really pick up until a summer audit that will occupy much of late July and August, running until about Labor Day.  Since my retirement, I've been going in at least three days a week (except during tax season, when it was four to five days).  When I've had a full week off, it's usually been with family or vacation. 

One of the best writing times I've had in my life was when I took Benjamin to Robot Camp at Georgia Tech (three summers ago)  and wrote while he was in camp, finishing over a hundred pages of Crowley Stories: Swamp's Edge.

I may not get full weeks over the next five weeks, but I should come closer.  I'm looking forward to getting into a better fiction writing routine.

Topic #2

So, what exactly is my writing focus right now?

I am writing more on The Extra Credit Club.  Why this project?  I may be deluding myself, but I think I have a publisher, one whom I've corresponded with, who is very likely to publish it.  And you would agree, wouldn't you, that it is best to concentrate on something that has the best chance of getting published?  Anyways, that's my idea.

What is The Extra Credit Club about?  12 students of Huron University (an imaginary college in Michigan) participate in an extracurricular activity with a Professor of medieval literature.  The assignment proves to be much more dangerous than any of them anticipated. More on this later!

Topic #3

I finally broke down and obtained Grammarly Premium.   My goal is to edit Crowley Stories: Swamp's Edge for the tenth time.  When I edited with basic Grammarly, it said there were 981 premium issues but to find out what they were, I had to get the premium program. Well, a few days ago they offered the Premium program for half price, so I broke down and got it.

I applied it to The Extra Credit Club (at this point, a shorter project than Crowley Stories)  to see what kind of problems I have.  Well, I tend to overuse certain words that are not needed, like really, just, actually, and others.  It's hard to get it through my head that adverbs are evil, but I'm getting there.  Really, I actually am, or just about.  It also fussed about the ways I used commas.  Sometimes, I swear, it wanted me to change comma use differently than the way the basic program had told me to change.  That's right.  Premium would contradict Basic.  Oh, well.

More problematic was the significant number of issues I had with passive voice.  I tried to fix those, but I found it hard because most of the story is in past tense.  I also ended some sentences with a preposition.  I changed some but not all of those.

Topic #4

It's hard to believe, but it's time to prepare for Benjamin's college applications.  We're happy with his ACT score, so we're done with that phase.  But he needs to start working on essays and a resume.

He also needs to drive some more.  We'd like him to retake his driver's test this Fall.  He's not going to have his own car, and probably won't take one to college, but we'd like him to have a license anyway, just in case.


Topic #5

So, Melania's jacket was some sort of message, but I don't know what.  No, she didn't wear it to the shelters, just at the airport, or at least that's what I read.  It was 90, but there was some rain forecast, so I think she was wearing for that reason?  My questions - was this her jacket?  Or did she borrow from somebody else on the plane?  If she bought it, why?  If you buy something with writing on it, the written message on it must strike a chord with you, right?  What chord did it strike in Melania?  When she bought it (if she bought it), what was it saying to her at the time?  Has she worn it before?  How often and when? You can research and find out that Zara (the jacket's manufacturer) is a terrible company, with anti-semitic apparel and poor working conditions.  It's much harder to discover what was really going in Melania's head.  That we may never know.

Topic #6

We continue to be captivated by soccer.  Alison finds out when the Atlanta United games are on, and is absorbed by them the whole time they are on.  It helps that Atlanta is such a good team, with the best record in the MLS (Major League Soccer).

I've followed some of the scores in the World Cup, but I haven't watched much of it.  Hard to have favorites.  I like the idea of Senegal and Iceland, or as I call them, Fire and Ice!


That's it for now.  I could muse more, but I probably should get on to other writing projects.

Until next time,

T. M. Strait

We Really Do Care: Saturday Political Soap Box 186

Why did Melania Trump wear a jacket that said:  "I Really Don't Care, Do U?"  across its back?

I really don't know.  Do I care?  I'm not sure.  Did she mean the children?  Her husband?  The media?  The weather? 

But I think we do care.

We care about the children.  The separation of families has struck a chord with many of us, and we don't see a plan to reunite those families.  The American people's reaction is that we do care.  This was a step too far for even immigration hardliners.

We care about her husband.  At least we care about the damage he is doing to our country and the democracy it is founded upon.  We care that he has chosen to identify more with world dictators than he has with democratic leaders.  We care that his rhetoric is tinged with racist paranoia and that he is trying to get us to react in fear, rather than in reason or compassion.

We care about the media.  We care that we have a 24 hours news station that is basically state-run television supporting Trump, no matter how authoritarian he is, no matter what godawful thing he does or says, no matter how much they have to contort or change previous positions.  We care about how much of the media is controlled by only a handful of corporations.  We care that we're losing net neutrality, dramatically increasing the odds that the Internet becomes expensive and under the control of only a few large players.  Please keep reading my blog even if they slow down your access to it.

We care about the weather.  We care that global warming remains unchecked, indeed has even been accelerated by the actions of the Trump administration.  Rules and regulations concerning pollution have been reversed, and fossil fuels have been favored over alternative energy.  We care that extreme weather, exacerbated by climate change, has become the norm rather than the exception.  The negative effects of global warming will create millions of climate refugees as parts of the planet become uninhabitable.   The current level of refugees will look like a trickle compared to what's coming. There will be mass migration on a level the world has never seen before.

Not everyone who reads this blog cares about every single one of these concerns.  A few may not care about any of them.  But there are many of us who are concerned, about these issues and many others.  And as long as there is breath in our bodies, we will continue to speak out.

What I really don't care about is commenting too much about the lives of the first family.  I have never commented much on Melania Trump, one way or another.  Those of Trump's children who speak out on public issues, including adviser Ivanka Trump, make it fair game as it relates to whatever issue they've spoken out about.  But the rest is not my concern, and I really don't care what they do or don't do,  Do you?

So, I don't know why she wore that jacket.  It could have been completely unintentional with no ulterior purpose.  I doubt it, but it could have been. 

But I do know this.  We care.  And we will continue to care.  There will always be a reason to care.  There will always be people that need caring about, that need kindness and understanding.  There will always be issues that affect us all, that require our action and caring to make things better for all.

We care, Melania.  And I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt.  I think, deep down. you care too.

Only time will tell.

Nope. Can't explain it.

The Problem is identified

Huzzah!

The President has come in and cleared up a problem of his own creation!  He does have a heart!

Well, not really.

He did very little, other than to jail future families together indefinitely.

He did nothing to help the families already separated.  He has increased the penalties for crossing at the wrong point from civil to criminal.

The zero tolerance policy continues, basically unabated.

He didn't make his policy change because of any sympathy for the children and their parents.  He did it because the optics looked bad for him.  Our television President didn't like how it made him look on television.  Nothing else moved him.  Well, maybe Ivanka, but I'd rather not get into that.

So, Trump is nasty and cruel.  We knew that. No one should be shocked by that.

What it did identify, what it made crystal clear, is identify those who would support him no matter what.  Those who bought into the whole thing, those for whom being tough on immigration justified any measure, any cruelty.

For some of us, it was friends, neighbors, sometimes even relatives, whom we realized were too far gone to help.  People who otherwise seem kind and rational, who had no problem justifying this cruelty.  It helped identify the persuadable and the incalcitrant.  There may be some people who are never coming back.  And the rest of us have to find a way to live with those people.

For those of you who live in more liberal, progressive places, this may not be a big problem.  But for us living in rural areas and small towns, particularly in the South, we have to learn to cope somehow.  We still have to go to work.  Many of us go to church.  We all have to go into environments where we are outnumbered by madness.

There seem to be two objections to immigration, illegal or otherwise.  One is economic - fears of losing jobs that should go to Americans, and to the social welfare cost of sustaining them.  The second is cultural - that the naturally superior white culture will be drowned by people of different colors and faiths.  A Corollary to this is that this is a nation founded on Christianity and that accepting people of other faiths will dilute that.

The first problem I can address.  Some say there are jobs Americans won't take, therefore we need migrants to take them, who will be willing to work for substandard wages and tolerate substandard conditions.  Every single human being has a right to be treated with dignity and paid a living wage.

So, here's what we do.  For every job, no matter how crappy, employers offer a living wage to do the job (right now, that would be somewhere between $13.50 and $15.00 an hour).  If Americans don't take the jobs, then offer the jobs to migrants, but do so AT THE SAME LIVING WAGE.  Pay them what you would an American.  No more under the table and underpaying crap.    BAM!  Immigration problem solved!

The second problem I can't address.  Bigotry often knows no cure.  We can pray that bigots change, but we can't just hold our breath.  Cultures change and move on.  We are not a prehistoric fly preserved in amber glass.

Every immigrant group that has come here has eventually merged into the melting pot of America.  Well, except maybe Southerners, but that's another discussion for another time.  Eventually, blue jeans, rock 'n' roll, and the mini-mall rule us all.  Eventually, English wins.  Maybe with a few new colorful phrases added, but that is one of the strengths of English - it's ability to adapt and absorb.  We have more culinary dishes to choose from.  The combination of diversity and unity makes us the greatest nation on Earth.  When we behave and not give into nativism, we do it better than any other country.

When you consider immigrants. illegal or otherwise, something less than yourself, when you dehumanize them, you turn your back on this nation.  You turn your back on humanity.  You turn your back on God.

But, tragically, these people may not be moved by reason, as they ruled by fear.  There may be nothing we can do, except to make sure there are more of us voting than them.

The Age of Trump. It's exhausting, I know.  It's depressing.  We lose sleep.  We're heartbroken over our family and friends that are still onboard his terrible train.

But I can't stop.  I will continue tilting at the windmill.  You never know.