On the last day of Black History Month, I went to the Frist Museum to see the Southern Modern and Latoya M. Hobbs exhibits. I pointed out to my friend that most of the artists could not draw realistic hands. It’s one thing if the painting or drawing is not meant to be realistic. Then, the hands would be in the style of the painting or drawing. And, in the museum store, there was a book on how to draw hands.
Bill to prevent Tennesseans from asking courts to review rules of the Legislature that affect their ability to participate in the enactment of laws.
In a previous Post, I wrote about Tennessee and its devolvement into Jim Crow/Fascism/White Supremacy. Now, the Legislature has voted to ban the Rainbow Flag and the Black Lives Matter Flag. However, the Nazi and Confederate Flags were not banned. Let’s look at this as losers glorifying losers.
“A new analysis by The Sentencing Project has found that Tennessee disenfranchises 21 percent of its Black residents and just over 8 percent of its Latino population, in both cases more than any other state…” excerpt from Tennessee Disenfranchises 21% of Black Voting Population: Analysis By TCR Staff November 8, 2022 https://thecrimereport.org/2022/11/08/tennessee-disenfranchises-21-of-black-voting-population-analysis/
The above—a step further into authoritarianism–no one’s voice in opposition must be heard. Voter suppression has been a tool of white supremacy since the end of Slavery. A step closer to theocracy; a step closer to more a more intrusive government; a step closer to a society that would cause the Founders to plan another Revolution to prevent a theocratic dictatorship supported by oligarchic corporate interests from taking root.
If you watched You Tube after the Hamas attack, and I did, what I heard was that Israel’s goal was genocide. Have you noticed if the Palestinians are told to evacuate to a certain area that is where the Israelis strike? Every time. Israel wants revenge and all the land and it is prepared to murder all the Palestinians in order to achieve those goals. And they, the white colonizers and usurpers of the Jewish religion, call themselves God’s people.
When a judge uses religion as a legal justification for a decision…the judge is an ideologue who does not belong on the Bench. A true jurist only uses the law as a basis for their decisions. This country was founded on the premise that the “rule of law” would prevail. (Unfortunately, the U.S. has not had the good fortune to have a great number of “true jurists”. That is our fault. We have nothing in place to ensure that “true jurists” are seated as judges. When we elect judges or appoint judges, we open ourselves to the narcissists, the greedy, the con artists, the incompetent, the power hungry, the ideologues… Laws are not perfect and laws are ever-changing, but laws provide the illusion that they fulfill the will of the people who are subject to them. What the judge did in the Alabama case that said that embryos are people is rule according to his religious beliefs and not according to the law or science. That is dangerous. There are as many interpretations of the words of the Bible as there are people who have read the Bible.
Do you really want a representative who says that he doesn’t care what his constituents want or think, because he will pray and do what he thinks is best for them. He is not a representative; he is an ideologue whose only concern is himself. I think an elected representative in Tennessee said that, but when I read it, I dismissed it as right wing babble. He was probably a Christian Nationalist, like the Speaker of the House and other prominent Republicans.
Some very vocal People, despite the overwhelming evidence, seem to believe that the United States is not a racist country and that anything that benefits Blacks is racist. That’s how deep into the rabbit hole some are. Anyway, for my own benefit, I wrote the below timeline. Just the highlights.
TIMELINE U.S.A. BLACK STATUS
Before 1661………………….De Facto Slavery
1661-1865……………………..De Jure Slavery
1865-1870……………………..13th, 14th, 15th Amendments
1865-1877………………………Reconstruction
1877-1964………………………Jim Crow/Legalized Terrorism/Separate and Unequal
1964……………………………….Civil Rights Act
1965……………………………….Voting Rights Act
1968……………………………….Fair Housing Act
1964-1978………………………Affirmative Action Racial Quotas
1978-2023………………………Qualified Affirmative Action
(≤)2008 to Present…………White Supremacy and Neo-Jim Crow
2013 to Present…………….Gutting of Voting Rights Act
2023……………………………….No Affirmative Action, except
for Legacies, Donors, athletes
***Other acts and policies that negatively affected the status of Black Americans: 1971 to present….War on Drugs; 1965 to present….War on Crime; 1956 to Present….interstate system destruction of Black Neighborhoods; 1944 to Present….GI Bill; 1930 to present…Redlining; 1862….Homestead Act
Did you take a philosophy class in college? Remember Plato? Remember the “Philosopher King”? That leader who would be chosen based on merit, intelligence, and philosophical knowledge? And, the “Philosopher King” would be advised by a group of men (Plato was a member of a patriarchal society.) called the “Guardians” who were highly educated and disciplined. This Guardian class would have no personal property and the ties to their birth families would be severed. That Plato reasoned would ensure that the Guardians would act in the best interests of the populace, i.e., the common good would be their priority and not their personal interests.
The “Guardians” education would focus on philosophy, mathematics, ethics and physical fitness for they were to be the examples the populace would aspire to.
What would Plato say about our capitalistic society? Where character, ethics, morality, principles have no place? And the meaning of words change with the speaker? Where greed rules and everything is on the auction block? Would he look at all the knowledge we have at our disposal and lament what could have been?
Well, this country’s leaders are no where near that Platonic ideal. In fact, I would say that the leaders of today are the antithesis of that ideal. The Supreme Court has ruled that an insurrectionist, an exemplar of amorality, a racist, a thief, a liar should remain on the ballot despite the clear language of the 14th amendment. Someone who has threatened to suspend the Constitution if elected and be a dictator. As I’ve written before, dictators have no need of courts. The Supreme Court of this land has failed us in the name of partisanship and loyalty to an evil that will continue to plague this country. As the article below states…the originalists on the Court are only originalists when the originalism analysis agrees with their partisanship narrative.
But the Supreme Court, especially in the past fifty years, has more often than it should failed us, we the citizens of these United States. A partisan Supreme Court handed the presidency to George W. Bush. Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000). Corporations have the rights of an individual with respect to campaign donations. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310. The gutting of the legislation passed in the 1960s to ensure a more civil and just society. See, e.g., Shelby County v. Holder, 570 U.S. 529 (2013) and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, 600 U.S. 181 (2023); As one Supreme Court Justice said on his way to becoming a paid mouthpiece… paraphrase...I don’t get paid enough. We have no Philosopher Kings or Guardians. We have only foxes in the hen house, gloating over their hencapital.
In the end–the former president (t)oday stands as an adjudicated sexual abuser, so too he remains an adjudicated insurrectionist. It is up to us, as voters, to make use of those findings come November. (emphasis added) excerpt from The Court’s Colorado Decision Wasn’t About the Law By George T. Conway III, The Atlantic, March 5, 2024 (online)
Just a thought–you might escape the flood on the high road, but you will not escape the tsunami. See the tide ebbing, slowly ebbing? The eerie stillness that surrounds one? The animals fleeing through the underbrush? No alarms, no warning that raises the hackles…tsunami. I am not a fan of the “high road” philosophy. What good is the “high road” when the ones on the “low road” are constantly taking potshots, with those shots sometimes causing injury, trauma, and/or death? Know your enemy, the enemy’s tactics, and weaknesses, and you stand a chance of defeating your enemy.
Anger may in time change to gladness; vexation may be succeeded by content. But a kingdom that has once been destroyed can never come again into being; nor can the dead ever be brought back to life. Sun Tzu
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