Women's Voices Media

THAT SAYS IT ALL

Posted by on Jun 09, 2023 in News, Intersectional Issues

Sometimes you wonder whether it is possible to be both a legislator and a decent human being. We don't see much evidence of it these days.

CAN WE CALL IT FASCISM YET ?

Posted by on Jun 06, 2023 in Background, Judicial System, Intersectional Issues

CIVIL DISCOURSE by JOYCE VANCE

"Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers," George Orwell wrote in 1944, "almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come." Although political scientists have crafted more precise definitions in the ensuing years, the enduring image of fascism is that of the hate-fueled bully.

In a September 2020 interview, Joe Biden called his then-opponent, Donald Trump, "sort of like [Joseph] Goebbels," a reference to Hitler’s propaganda chief during the Nazi regime. "You say the lie long enough, keep repeating it, repeating it, repeating it, it becomes common knowledge," Biden explained. One aspect of fascism is repeating the lie until your followers come to believe it, accepting it as an obvious truth, something Trump is the master of.

In 2018, Madeleine Albright said in an interview: "We can't have a leader that feels that he is above the law. The law and the rule of law is the most essential part of a democratic system.” Trump subsequently advocated for his supporters to use violence but sent federal forces to curb Black Lives Matter protests in American cities. He used the nationalistic slogan “Make America Great Again” and aligned himself with Christian nationalist groups that have little to do with Christianity.

Trump refused to commit to a peaceful transfer of power in advance of the 2020 election and tried to overthrow it after he lost, claiming it was rife with fraud—it wasn’t—while trying to install fake slates of electors to preempt duly elected ones and running an intimidation campaign against his own vice president to try and secure his cooperation. With the dismissal of his court cases and all his other plans coming apart, Trump tried to subvert DOJ and came close to installing as attorney general an unqualified environmental lawyer whose only credential was his willingness to throw the might of DOJ behind Trump’s claims of election fraud. It was a putsch attempt and Trump sulked like a child when it failed. Instead of ensuring a smooth transition to the new rightful president, he balked and obstructed and, apparently, took classified documents with him on the way out of the White House. He has continued ever since to act as a divisive force, motivated only by self-interest.

So reporting this week that Trump intends to target prosecutors and agents involved in the special counsel’s investigation of him if he regains the White House, identifying and firing them, comes as no surprise. But it seems to have mostly gotten lost in the shuffle of news about developments in the Mar-a-Lago case, despite the fact that it is equally deserving of our attention. Rolling Stone reported, “In recent months, the former president has asked close advisers, including at least one of his personal attorneys, if ‘we know’ all the names of senior FBI agents and Justice Department personnel who have worked on the federal probes into him. That’s according to two sources with direct knowledge of the matter and another person briefed on it.” There you have it, the party of law and order, preparing to exact revenge on people pledged to work for law and order.

If law enforcement officials who are upholding their oaths to the Constitution and doing their job won’t be safe in a new Trump regime, then really, who will be? No one. Because in a country overtaken by a cult of personality, you never know on any given day when you’re going to run afoul of the leader’s whims. You could be the shop assistant who doesn’t have the right size shirt in stock or the chef whose meal Trump doesn’t like. You could be a grandchild’s teacher who gives an accurate but low grade. Really, you could be anyone. It doesn’t matter because once we install a leader who rejects a rule of law system of government in favor of one where all that matters are the momentary desires of the head of the cult, we are beyond the protections the law has traditionally offered people in this country from overreaching leaders. Trump has made abundantly clear his intent to dismantle that system if he gets another opportunity.

More from Rolling Stone’s reporting: “Trump has...privately discussed that should he return to the White House, it is imperative his new Department of Justice ‘quickly’ and ‘immediately’ purge the FBI and DOJ’s ranks of these officials and agents who’ve led the Trump-related criminal investigations, the sources recount. The ex-president has of course dubbed all such probes as illegitimate ‘witch hunts,’ and is now campaigning for the White House on a platform of ‘retribution’ and cleaning house.” Trump is the quintessential bully who doesn’t believe in the rule of law.

Trump has leveled specific criticism against FBI Director Chris Wray, his 2017 appointee, objecting to Wray’s failure to engage in a wholesale purge of people who are not loyal to Trump and threatening to fire him on his first day back in the White House if he wins in 2024. But Trump’s sights aren’t set exclusively on DOJ. He has gone beyond that, promising that top of the list for his revenge and retribution campaign against federal employees whose loyalty is to the Constitution, not Trump, is reinstituting “Schedule F.” Schedule F is an executive order that would make it much easier for him to fire federal employees across the executive branch, while also offering the ability to replace them with Trump loyalists (despite longstanding protections for civil servants against just this type of action).

From his earliest moments in office, Trump targeted employees whom he thought were insufficiently loyal to him, personally. The first one was then–FBI Director Jim Comey, who declined to give Trump the personal loyalty oath he sought, saying that his loyalty was to the Constitution. Comey was, of course, fired. The bookend at the conclusion of Trump’s presidency was his top cybersecurity official, Chris Krebs, who issued a statement calling the 2020 election “the most secure in American history” despite his boss’s claims of pervasive fraud. Trump fired Krebs on Twitter for contradicting The Big Lie.

Special counsel Jack Smith’s attention appears to have turned toward the Krebs firing, but it may have more to do with establishing Trump’s state of mind—proof he knew he’d lost in a fair election—than any new substantive lean in the direction of that investigation. It is nonetheless another significant marker on the path toward the possibility of an authoritarian America.

Personal loyalty oaths to the president aren’t how our country is supposed to work. Career federal employee jobs aren't spoils of war for a president to hand out like party favors. There are political appointments like judgeships and executive agency leadership, but the folks who move the ship of state forward from administration to administration are career professionals. Like the prosecutors and agents temporarily detailed to special counsel investigations into Trump, they are supposed to have civil service protections. In a normal world, Trump would be unable to walk in and fire them. His plans to do so are sinister. Trump is threatening to fundamentally change the structure of our country so that it runs in a way that serves him and not the people. That, of course, describes Trump in a nutshell.

What’s still more sinister is that little, if any, attention is being paid to Trump’s clear intentions to lead us away from democracy if he gets another shot at the White House. Is it fascism yet? Even asking the question can draw criticism these days. But we have on our hand a bully who repeats his lies until they become accepted as fact, at least by his followers, and who eschews the rule of law in favor of personal loyalty to him. It’s a frightening picture for the future, a future it’s critical that we prevent.

We’re in this together,

Joyce

Civil Discourse with Joyce Vance is a reader-supported publication. Everyone is welcome, and you can subscribe for free. Paid subscribers support my ability to devote more time to this work.

THIS PRIDE MONTH LET'S REMEMBER CORPORATIONS ARE NOT ALLIES

Posted by on Jun 05, 2023 in Social Justice, Background, Intersectional Issues

The Target company’s capitulation to homophobes and transphobes is a testament to the dangers of relying on corporations to uphold social justice.

By Sonali Kolhatkar

Just days before the start of June, celebrated around the country and as world “Pride month,” Target corporation decided that proudly allying with the LGBTQIA+ community by selling Pride-themed merchandise was not worth the alienation of bigots. Facing rightwing violence and what it called “volatile circumstances,” the company pulled some of its rainbow-festooned products and moved pride-related displays to the back of stores in some locations.

In 2015, Caroline Wanga, then Target’s senior director of diversity and inclusion, said, “Target proudly stands with the LGBT community through all that we do.” But nearly eight years later, it didn’t take very much for the company to back off from such a bold statement via its actions.

As per AP, “Target said that customers knocked down Pride displays at some stores, angrily approached workers[,] and posted threatening videos on social media from inside the stores.” Unsurprisingly, the greatest backlash was centered on the company’s sales of “tuck-friendly” bathing suits aimed at adult transgender people. Conservative culture warriors falsely claimed that such bathing suits were being sold in the children’s section—a lie consistent with their claims that transgender people have an agenda of “grooming” children.

In addition to illustrating just how far homophobic and transphobic forces will go to dehumanize a significant swath of the population, the Target brouhaha is a testament to the dangers of relying on corporations to uphold social justice.

Corporations don’t have values—at least not ones centered on human rights anyway. Individuals at corporations may espouse values of social justice. Marketing departments may capitalize on public acceptance of social justice to sell their products. But the only values that corporations inherently hold are ones that maximize profits as voraciously as possible, bound only by the strictest regulations.

Take the advice that marketing expert Allen Adamson of Metaforce gave Target. According to ABC7, Adamson “said Target should have thought through the potential for backlash and taken steps to avoid it, like varying the products it sells by region.” In other words, Target should have been more careful about rearranging its products so as to avoid igniting the lynch mobs. “The country is far less homogenous than it ever was,” explained Adamson, euphemistically. “For any brand, it’s not ‘one size fits all’ anymore.” In other words, we surely can’t expect everyone in America to respect the rights of minorities!

For decades, “Pride month” has been an opportunity to celebrate the lives, rights, and achievements of the LGBTQIA+ community. Born out of the 1969 Stonewall uprising in New York, and stemming from the (now-quaint-sounding because it leaves out other parts of the spectrum) label “gay pride,” the idea was for sexual minorities to come out of the shadows that society had long relegated them to, eschew the shame foisted upon them by rigid notions of heterosexuality and misogynist patriarchy and generations of toxic masculinity. For decades, Pride month celebrations and parades were, by their mere existence, political acts. Alongside the glitz and glamor as a way to take up space were such serious issues as the government’s neglect of the AIDS crisis.

Eventually, through concerted activism, narrative shifting, policy victories, and Supreme Court decisions, a community struggling for visibility and equal rights began enjoying greater acceptance. With that came companies like Target, ready to market Pride-themed products and eager to be seen by its customers as moving forward with the times. Pride had begun to go mainstream–until the right-wing mob amped up the hate.

An extensive 2019 report for the Washington Post titled “Pride for Sale,” pointedly claimed that the Pride month celebration now “sometimes seems more retail than riot.” Still, activist Evan Greer, in a video portion of the report said that corporations embracing Pride was “not wholly a bad thing,” rather it should be seen as “a symbol of our growing economic and political power.”

Greer was right. Corporate support of causes is simply public relations. It is a sign that the culture is shifting thanks to the hard work of those impacted. It does not mean the business actually cares. Target’s recent capitulation to right-wing bigots proves this point. And it’s not alone among companies facing pressure from bigots.

Anheuser-Busch also made headlines for trying to appease the right-wingers who took aim at transgender influencer Dylan Mulvaney’s partnership promoting Bud Light beer. Instead of standing up for Mulvaney after she and the company faced backlash, a corporate spokesperson claimed that Anheuser-Busch, “never intended to be part of a discussion that divides people.” In doing so, the company appeared to concede that Mulvaney’s right to exist was up for debate.

Right-wing culture wars have historically been highly effective at turning the tide of public opinion. CNN’s Oliver Darcy warns, “the supposedly anti-cancel culture crowd is leading the summer’s biggest cancel culture campaign” in targeting companies that have capitalized on Pride month. In addition to Target and Anheuser-Busch, conservative bigots and right-wing media outlets have taken aim at State Farm, Lego, Nike, and even the Los Angeles Dodgers.

Hyperfocus on Pride-themed campaigns enables conservative media companies like Fox News to whip up outrage against minorities, which they hope will translate into votes for the GOP, a party whose real agenda has focused on enriching billionaires. Those same wealthy elites are the ones who own and run companies like Target.

Vox’s Emily Stewart points out, “For many queer people, rainbow capitalism has always been a bit complicated—a sometimes-uncomfortable corporate bedfellow that nevertheless did confer a sense of social legitimacy.” But Target will not stand up for the rights of LGBTQIA+ folks. Corporations will run at the first sign of trouble to their bottom lines.

What the corporate decision-makers at Target and Anheuser-Busch are missing is that the cultural pendulum has not swung away from LGBTQIA+ rights—yet. GLAAD’s 2023 Accelerating Acceptance study found that among those who do not identify as LGBTQ support for equal rights is at an all-time high. According to the study, “An 84 [percent] supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans support equal rights for the LGBTQ community,” and “A 91 [percent] supermajority of non-LGBTQ Americans agree that LGBTQ people should have the freedom to live their [lives] and not be discriminated against.”

These numbers are deeply heartening and reveal just how out-of-touch Republican and conservative leaders are in their attacks on queer Americans, and just how badly corporations who want to portray themselves as “allies” are missing the target—pun definitely intended.

Released for Syndication: 06/02/2023 Source: Independent Media Institute

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Author: Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her forthcoming book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization.

WHAT COULD AMERICA EXPECT FROM Ron DeSantis?

Posted by on Jun 03, 2023 in Economic Justice, Reproductive Rights, Environment, Newsworthy, Elections, Politics & Elections, Intersectional Issues

You don’t need to be a Floridian for it to be important to pay attention to DeSantis and Florida. He’s running for the Republican nomination for president so he can do for (TO) you and America what he has done to Florida and its' citizens..

He wants to “bring America back”. Yes! Back to the dark ages. His stance on the issues most important to most Americans is a prime example of “mans’ inhumanity to (wo)man”.

Some refer to him as a mini-Trump but many of us think he is far smarter – in a bad way- and more devious than Trump. Definitely someone we should fear.

The article referred to below is a long read but it is well worth your time. Mary Ellen Klas carefully lays out what you should know and abhor about DeSantis.

What could America expect from Ron DeSantis?

How he has changed Florida provides clues.

By MARY ELLEN KLAS HERALD/TIMES TALLAHASSEE BUREAU

UPDATED MAY 31, 2023 4:59 PM

CURRICULUM and BOOKS but NOT GUNS! GORMAN'S RESPONSE

Posted by on Jun 01, 2023 in Social Justice, Background, Intersectional Issues

Republican lawmakers around the country value guns & the NRA more than the lives of our children.

They are turning their backs on providing factual teaching of history by banning books and removing factual information from school curriculums.

Perhaps you – the voters - will show them that is not acceptable.