A confluence of two events smote my heart this week. Ruth Bader Ginsburg's death, after hanging on so valiantly, and the hypocritical rush of republicans to appoint one of their right wing judges in her place mere DAYS before the election, when they would not allow Barak Obama to appoint one ten MONTHS before election, shows the two sets of rules that apply in the US now, for reds and blues, with reds calling the shots, with corruption so blatant they dont even try to hide it.
Then I watched a film about Helen Reddy's life, and her songs took me back, with tears, to the rise of the women's movement in the 70's, and my own rise of consciousness along with it. Her songs launched me out of an oppressive and impossible marriage and into a life of my own, at last, though it took me some years to find my sea-legs.
I was in tears at film clips, in the film, of the women's movement. Oh, the dreams we had, the power we felt in women rising. The contrast between those days and now, when the repubs are doing all they can to roll us back fifty years to a time more comfortable for old white men, is just horrifying. It is like watching democracy, the Constitution, any hope of social justice, dying a painful death under the knee of the patriarchy. Again.
And the Equal Rights Amendment has STILL not been passed.
All I can do is hope that enough women, African-Americans, Latinos, refugees, marginalized people and young people will VOTE - somehow finding their way to do so through the maze of voter suppression and outright vote tampering.
I have read a great deal, over the decades, about the Third Reich, and a lot of this is feeling very familiar. Vote the emperor out. Let's return to government by the people for the people, with people who swear to serve their constituents, not themselves. It has never been more important. I scoff now at ever having thought George Bush was a bad president. trump has taken that to a whole other level. Unbelievable that it is happening in the home of the brave and the land of the free. It wont be free and brave for long if he gets back in.
Nobody in the US seems willing to copy or counter what worked for Trump. Maybe in Canada it's different. What worked for Trump is that, while a dozen other people who really were Republicans (Trump is strictly for Trump) were begging R's for campaign donations, Trump was "the self-funding candidate." (That lasted until the others dropped out.)
ReplyDeleteI fantasize about a *frugal* "self-funding" candidate who'd get free advertising just by not soliciting, maybe even rejecting, campaign donations. Especially from huge corporations that routinely give the maximum amount to each candidate so that whoever wins will be obligated to them.