United States No Longer

As I write this my anger is intense. I must watch what I say so that I can keep some very good friends. Yet, I’m beginning to wonder if that is possible.

Tonight, has been my tipping point and I am reconsidering whether non-violence is still an option for saving our nation. The next few hours and days will determine if peace is possible.

There are several events that challenge my beliefs.

Texas is a clear indicator of what what is wrong in our nation. The actions of the Texas Governor and Legislature. When Governor Abbot signed Texas’s Draconian Anti-Abortion Ban, there was an element that got some attention but the kind it deserved. A provision in the bill is allows private citizens to sue anyone who advises, assists, or provides abortion services. Tomorrow, unless the Supreme Court stays implementation of the law, will dawn with Roe v Wade effectively dead in Texas and soon in all Republican controlled states.

This law is evil. It has flipped our legal system on its head. Rather than relying on the state to instigate lawsuits, this law deputizes everyday citizens to do it. Indeed, the law bans Texas from acting on these lawsuits. This effectively shields the Texas from the Federal Courts getting involved to protect the civil rights of all citizens.  Anyone in or out of Texas can sue any Texan, literally on hearsay. In essence, the mob has been given carte blanche to harass and destroy the lives of anyone who provides information about abortion, advises a woman to have an abortion, no matter if they are a professional family planning councilor, a religious authority, friends, family or even her husband.  Offering support as a friend, such as driving a woman to a clinic, is also verboten. Obviously, clinic administration, security, and medical staff are targets as well.

What are the penalties if you are sued and loose in court? It’s simple and expensive, $10,000 plus the accuser’s court costs. There are plenty of unethical lawyers in Texas that would gleefully feed at this trough.

Texas has given a powerful tool to evil people who are eager to use it. People who have demonstrated a willingness to use intimidation and violence, including murder, to deny a woman’s right to control her own body and her future.  

But that isn’t the only thing going on this evening.

Afghanistan, after 20 brutal and expensive years, is no longer our war. We are out. The three previous Presidents had campaigned on ending our involvement in that pointless war, yet none made it happen. True, the last president set things in motion but, as with everything else he did, it was self-serving and riddled with poor judgement. Clearly, he left Afghanistan as an IED to explode when President Biden took office.

And it worked. Biden has been criticized roundly by the Right, Left, and Center. People who knew better, got swept up in this hysterical feeding frenzy. The reaction on the Right was not surprising. What else would I expect from people who are self-serving and morally bankrupt.

Shamefully, many Democrats, the Left and informed pundits did the same thing. They displayed a fundamental flaw in my beloved Liberal-Progressive brethren. They can be self-righteous to a suicidal degree. I am disgusted with them. I suggest that everyone carefully listen to President Biden’s speech. He analyzed the situation and provided solid reasons for why we had to exit the bottomless pit of misery that is Afghanistan. It was the moral and responsible thing to do. Yes, it was chaotic and upsetting. So was the preceding 20 years. Why would any alert person think withdrawal would be otherwise?

Let us not forget the pandemic. As I write, 658,000 Americans have died from COVID. Most of these people are someone’s family, friends, and acquaintances, who need not have died. Once again, the previous president and Republican Party worked diligently to turn this American tragedy to their advantage politically and financially. After years of incessant denying and lying by the previous president, his administration, a cadre of corrupt elected GOP officials, Fox News, and various ideologues such as Rush Limbaugh, 1/3 of Americans are suffering from massive psychiatric meltdown. Their illness is tearing our nation to pieces.

I began this piece with a question. Can we save our nation through peaceful action or is violence necessary? Looking back over the last 2 decades and the ever-growing threat from the Right, the answer seems bleak.

Consider how the Right has dealt with every problem we are facing. In all cases, Republicans have refused to face issues squarely. They have preferred to create false crisis’ that allowed these underling problems to fester and get worse. Rather, they’ve taken every opportunity to spread divisive lies in a campaign of divide and conquer. The pandemic is a good example. I have come to believe that the previous president and his GOP cadre intentionally sabotaged, and continue to, because it is a cash cow and a vehicle to gather more power.

Another aspect of the GOP’s plan is the legitimization of the use of intimidation and violence. It is at the core of their push for domination. Texas’ new law promotes economic and psychological violence which, with little effort, can be open aggression against peaceful people trying to exercise their rights.

The GOP wants complete control so that they can impose their own cowboy sharia law. They are succeeding.

There is so much more that I could go into. The wars on Free Speech and Democracy, rational thinking and logic, services for children, elderly, poor and people of color, and ethics. The corruption of the GOP and its wealthy donors is in the open.

Sadly, it seems that it is impossible to reason with the Right. The grassroots base has been habituated to delusional thinking. They exist in a carefully constructed and managed alternate reality that has nothing to do with the world that most Americans and humanity lives in.

We have several existential crises racing towards us. Without concerted action and the application of science and strong Public Health measures, there is the potential that a continuous pandemic will evolve as the virus morphs into ever more deadly surges. Our democracy is collapsing as GOP states enact laws attacking our civil rights, in effect, seceding from the United States.

Most importantly is the threat the GOP and their supporters pose to our attempts to save ourselves from Global Warming. If we fail, we perish. Period. And the GOP wants nothing more than to sabotage our efforts. This can not be allowed to happen.

Violence? I still believe that we must continue to attempt to reason with individual Americans, allowing them to change their own minds and commit to our survival. At the same time, we are out of time for half-measures and obstruction. If it takes force to save the lives of our children, future generations, and life on Earth, then so be it. This is a cause worthy of shedding blood. We’ve been backed into a corner and woe to those who have taken advantage our goodwill.   

About the Image
The image is a composite, the sky and flag are individual images covered by Creative Commons usage. I manipulated both images and color corrected so that they would work together.

The Flag is by Mike Mozart, JeepersMedia, CC-BY.
The sky is by Fractal Artists, CC-BY.
The image above, Stormy Skies, is mine, CC-BY.