Tag: politics

Second Class

Today the United States made approximately 52% of the population second class citizens. In doing so, it removed any doubt as to whether or not the US is a first world nation. Any nation that is so corrupt as to allow the system designed to keep different branches of the government both separate and in check to rot away completely is a failed state.

Overturning Roe isn’t just about the overweening hatred of women and pregnant people that is foundational to the Republican/Fundamentalist/Catholic/White Supremacist/Billionaire/Toxic Cis Hetero-normative hegemony in this nation. It’s about fear and control. It is not and has never been about the unborn. If it was, prenatal care would be both funded and required, and people who neglected pregnant people’s healthcare would actually suffer consequences. But they don’t.

There is no pro in the “pro-life” movement. The anti-choice movement was created as a political movement to unite historically opposed allies so Republicans could get elected. That’s it. That’s the “pro-life” movement. It’s a con, and a very successful one.

If you think you’re virtuous because you’re screaming at people going in and out of Planned Parenthood, the vast majority of whom are receiving basic medical care regardless of sex or gender, you’re just being a judgmental asshole. If you think it’s acceptable to tell people that “women just shouldn’t be able to kill babies” then you don’t understand science, and you’re still an asshole. If you think someone who has been raped should be required to carry their rapist’s potential offspring to term, you’re certainly not getting your advice on morality from Jesus, and you’re an asshole.

The truth is, abortion is not mentioned in the Christian Bible. Other faiths, such as Judaism and Islam, actually value the lives of their adherents and consider abortion to be necessary medical care to save the lives of the already born. You know, those of us in whom society has already invested. In other words, the lives of actual people.

But here in the United States a small group of very wealthy, very white nominally Christian people have hoodwinked many of you and outright fucked the rest of us. They play on your fears. They turn your basest instincts about in-groups, out-groups, skin color, and sex, into weapons and then use them against you. Really, to a large extent this isn’t even about Democrats or Republicans, this is about Oligarchs. Because at the end of the day, if you have a uterus and you’re rich, you’ll be able to get necessary medical care, like an abortion, no matter what.

It’s the ordinary people, the rest of us, that will suffer, as we do now. We suffer in a failed nation with no nationalized health care; institutionalized racism and sexism; homophobia and transphobia; ableism and systemic and cultural indifference to the disabled; and with a huge part of the population that genuinely believes that it is really OK to hate loudly and proudly. We suffer with the largest incarcerated population in the “civilized” world, and we have an epidemic of gun violence unlike any other country on earth.

Roe is the first, but it won’t be the last. While we’re all angry now, let us make today important not because of what we lost, but because of what we begin. Let today be the day that historians recognize as the beginning of the revolution. Oligarchs, we are coming for you. Everyone else needs to get on the correct side of history, or else fall with the Oligarchs. They are going to wish we only had torches and pitchforks.

Our Holiday Card, and by the way, GOOD RIDDANCE to 2020

Well everyone, today is the last day of 2020, and I have to say Thank GOD it is finally coming to a close.  This has been a tough year for virtually everyone*, and for some people it has been just horrific.  Kelly and I have managed to make it through the year without getting COVID (at least as far as we know) and we are both still employed**.  But we did lose one of our beloved fur-kids – our little Thumbelina: the princess; the Khaleesi; the mighty little Emperox of our universe.  We miss her and still often think about her.  

2020 melting onto a dumpster with a fire raging in the foreground. There is a night sky in the background with COVID virus particles falling like snow, one of which is on the moon.
See the blazing dump before us fa la la la la, la la la la.

Continue reading “Our Holiday Card, and by the way, GOOD RIDDANCE to 2020”

Election Day 2020

We have been waiting four long years for this day to arrive. Frankly, I am so nervous about the whole thing that I had trouble sleeping last night (as I knew I would). Good thing I have today and tomorrow off from work.

 

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I have to vote for Joe. So do you.

Joe Biden was not my first choice as the Democratic Presidential Nominee. He wasn’t even on the list to be honest. But I will vote for him and Kamala Harris on or before November 3rd with my last breath if necessary. Anyone who is a registered voter in the US who does otherwise is a fool.

There have been a lot of people writing think pieces both before and now after the DNC about how Joe is reaching the “middle of the party” and Kamala is reaching out to the “Black vote” and how that “will heal the party”. I’m also personally seeing a LOT of folks on twitter and elsewhere who are angry. They’re angry that out of a field of Democratic candidates that included LGBTQ and BIPOC candidates for the top of the ticket we ended up with yet another old white guy.

I get that. And yet I’m still going to do whatever I have to in order to make sure that my vote for Biden/Harris is counted for November 3rd. This isn’t quite a hold my nose a vote situation, but it isn’t far off.

Here’s the thing, our country is literally and figuratively on fire right now. We’ve got nearly 200,000 dead of COVID-19, a number that could have been So. Much. Smaller. had we a competent administration in office. And that number, which is likely wildly low thanks to intentional failures of reporting in lots of states, doesn’t including “unrelated” but absolutely caused by COVID deaths such as suicides, domestic violence, overdoses, and the like.

Millions are out of work, the rights of humans all across this country are being stripped away in myriad ways, people are marching in the streets to try and, as I saw someone say the other day, “Legalize Blackness” and yet actual Nazis walk free in this land that fought to bring down the Third Reich. We have white supremacists and Nazis in our highest offices in the government and they’re enriching themselves and their billionaire friends at unprecedented rates all at the cost of the rest of us.

And yet I hear people saying that they won’t vote for Biden/Harris because, “she’s a cop” “he’s a white man” “he wasn’t my top choice” “I would have preferred X” “I can’t vote for someone who put black people in jail” etc, etc.

Here’s the thing. Biden/Harris are not gonna save us, they’re not gonna fix it all. No administration in the history of ever has done that. Not in one term, not in two, not in three.

But another term with Trump will kill us. That’s a fact.

And sitting in a position where you put your personal distaste of Biden or Harris over the good of this nation is a position of extreme privilege. If we expect the Republicans to put country over party then we should expect the same of ourselves, especially right now.

I want ranked choice voting. I want more than 2 parties. I wish it wasn’t this way. But right now, this is how it is. Right now, is not the time to try and make those things happen. Right now we’re voting for our very survival. We’re voting for our lives.

People are dying. If you don’t know someone who has died of or been ill with COVID, just wait. You will. And another 4 years of looting the American public, deaths en mass, and a destroyed government infrastructure is going to be the least of our worries if Trump isn’t beaten in a landslide.

Trump and his cabal are the greatest danger to our country, to each of us individually, and to the world any of us has seen in our lifetime. Every vote for anyone other than Biden/Harris is a vote for Trump. Hold your nose and and do your job as a citizen of this Republic and vote to save it.

Then, let’s get to work on fixing it.

Kelly

 

Civility and the High Road

Maybe it’s the way I’m feeling today, but I’m tired. I’m tired of fighting for my life, my health, and my right to exist as a full and wholly actualized human being with the expectation that I be “civil” or “lady like” to those who oppress me. Those who name me less than.

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Choose Your Own Christmas Card

Or Holiday/Yule/Festivus/Kwanzaa/New Year/Whatever card. You do you. You have choices between three photos this year, pick the one that best suits you. Or go for all/none of them, we’re ecumenical here at Casa Dachshund.

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Did the Continental Army seize airports during the Revolutionary War?

Yes.  Yes they did.

One of the bloodiest battles of the Revolution was fought on the Field of Logan (as it used to be called) in July 1775 between Massachusetts militia and two British army regiments: The Royal Regiment of Foot, Light  or ROFL Regiment; and the Western Tottenham Regiment of Foot, or WTF Regiment.  They were supported by a battery of artillery known as the Twickenham and Sussex Artillery, or the TSA.

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The Caning of Charles Sumner and the response by Anson Burlingame

I am a bit late to make this a “This Day in History” post, since the actual date in question was May 22nd, 1856.  Still, I wanted to talk about this subject since I have been reading about it and have also recently listened to a rather good podcast about it.  I have only recently begun listening to this Civil War podcast, but I find it quite good so far.  And blogging about history always cheers me up.  Besides, today (May 30th) IS the anniversary of the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854.

Anyway, I have always found the story of the attack on Senator Charles Sumner of Massachusetts by Congressman Preston Brooks of South Carolina to be one of the most shocking incidents leading up to the Civil War.  Only in recent years did I learn the role Massachusetts Congressman Anson Burlingame played in the events that followed.  In my mind, Burlingame is sort of the hero of the story, much more so than Sumner, anyway.

Southern_Chivalry

Continue reading “The Caning of Charles Sumner and the response by Anson Burlingame”

The “mutiny” in my ancestor’s Civil War regiment

I recently reread a book that I have not read in several years: The Mutiny at Brandy Station: The Last Battle of the Hooker Brigade : a Controversial Army Reorganization, Courts Martial, and the Bloody Days that Followed by Frederick B. Arner.  The book follows through events of early 1864 that led to the dissolution of my ancestor’s former unit, the 3rd Corps, and the assignment of his regiment to the 2nd Corps.  The author makes a compelling argument that one of the major reasons the former 3rd Corps units suffered so severely in the battles of Grant’s Overland Campaign is because the units’ morale had been shattered by the breaking up of the once-proud and distinguished 3rd Corps.

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My Time as a VIP and the National Park Service

Today is the anniversary of the Battle of Stones River.  I could do a long post about what happened on this day in 1863 but instead I want to talk about my own personal experience with the National Park Service, which is currently suffering from the government shutdown, and how that shutdown affects the NPS.

For over a decade I was a member of the Volunteers-in-Parks program for the National Park Service and really enjoyed it.  I spent most of my time at the Stones River National Battlefield in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, although I also spent some time at other nearby parks, especially Fort Donelson National Battlefield and Chickamauga & Chattanooga National Military Park.

When I first joined the National Park Service as a volunteer, it was so I could join the living history program at Stones River.  My first year I probably put in something like 150 to 200 hours of volunteer work, and afterward I was probably regularly doing at least 75 to 100 hours a year.  Even after I moved back to Huntsville and lived 2 hours away, I still managed to put in some hours for the NPS.  Why did I do this?  Because it was wonderful.  In fact, I view my time with the NPS as one of the most positive experiences I have ever had.  The people were just great, and I truly enjoyed interacting with visitors and the public in general.  Although I had done some public speaking before, I really developed that skill with the NPS.  It also gave me the chance to interact with some great historians, like Ed Bearss.

But right now, the NPS suffers from being massively understaffed.  The Trump administration apparently thought they could alleviate some of the effects of the shutdown on the National Parks by allowing them to be open during the shutdown, as opposed to closing them like the government did back in 2013.  It sounds great, at least on paper.  But allowing the public to continue to use the parks even though most park service employees are absent means that no one is cleaning the bathrooms, or handing out maps, or emptying the garbage cans.  It also means no one is collecting admission fees or enforcing rules.  And so the amount of wear and tear that is taking place is pretty bad.  And so many sites are being forced to close their doors.  A recent article from a Nashville TV station showed that many of the Civil War sites where I had volunteered are being affected by the shutdown.

So I hope that the shutdown does not last too long, as I hate to see so many of these parks get wrecked with no one to do any cleaning up.  And maybe one day I will be able to do some history volunteering again.  We’ll see.

~Geoff