An end to these recurring characters

Leading up to the low turnout rally in Tulsa a couple days ago the nasty guy campaign got pranked. Bobby Allyn of NPR talked about it with Mary Jo Laupp. She directs musical theater productions at a high school in Iowa. She created a TikTok video suggesting people reserve tickets to the rally even though they had no intention of going. Prominent TikTok people shared it. Korean Pop boosted it. The day after Laupp posted the video 300,000 people said they were interested in the event. A lot of them, actually got tickets as a joke.

Did it actually have an effect on the rally’s turnout? Who can say? There are other reasons for pranking.

Steve Schmidt, a political strategist, has worked on GOP campaigns, but strongly opposes the nasty guy. His teenage daughter got a ticket. Schmidt said:

It was really an act of civil disobedience, of subversion by young people who understand the consequences and are appalled and disgusted by the comportment and behavior of this president.

Laupp says there are teens and young adults who are saying, we did this. It will likely lead to more online activism and get-out-the-vote efforts.



Sarah Kendzior tweeted a quote from her Gaslit Nation podcast:

If Biden wins, he needs to spend four years identifying every official who was complicit in Trump admin corruption. They have to be named, outed, and permanently banned from power. They can't let it go.

We can't have a repeat of what happened with every other admin dealing with GOP crime, which was to let criminals go free. Nixon, Iran-Contra, 9/11 aftermath, 2008 crash. That's how we got the same criminal elites in power over and over.

They can't -- for the sake of 'not being divisive' or 'moving forward" or whatever euphemism they'll give it -- excuse elite criminality. They must prosecute it. There needs to be consequences and an end to these recurring characters.

Kelly Thompson describes himself as “Person for the ethical treatment of facts and humans. Fan of inalienable rights.” He tweeted a quote from Kendzior’s book Hiding in Plain Sight:

Kushner does not need to fear the law when his father-in-law can rewrite it. That is how life works in a dynastic kleptocracy. That is how life works now in the United States of America.

Kos of Daily Kos looks at the nasty guy’s current reelection prospects. His approval rating remains low and stable. His rating for handling the virus is low and stable and is at the top of voter’s minds. There isn’t much white backlash against the Black Lives Matter protests. That means his “Law and Order!” campaign message means little with so many people dying from the virus. As Kos wrote, keeping grandma alive might be a good campaign message but the nasty guy has zero interest in that.



Greg Dworkin of the Kos community, in his pundit roundup for today, quoted Stephanie McCurry of the Atlantic:

For the four years of its existence, until it was forced to surrender, the Confederate States of America was a pro-slavery nation at war against the United States. The C.S.A. was a big, centralized state, devoted to securing a society in which enslavement to white people was the permanent and inherited condition of all people of African descent.

Bill in Portland, Maine honored the birthday of George Carlin. Bill described him as Philosopher of Comedy and included a few quotes. Here’s one of them:

Traditional American values: genocide, aggression, conformity, emotional repression, hypocrisy, and the worship of comfort and consumer goods.

Just and unjust laws

Today is Martin Luther King Day, an American holiday to ponder what he did in his all too brief life. A lot of people would be glad to “interpret” him for us – to cleanse and sanitize his words so we can continue to ignore what he stood for.

To resist that we should read his words directly. Several people, such as Melissa McEwan of Shakesville mark today by posting Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, written in 1963. It is long, but well worth reading. Even if you read it last year and the year before. It is worth reading because what is primarily in my mind this year is different from what was in my mind in previous years, so different parts of the letter resonate more strongly.

The letter talks about a great many things. I’ll focus today on what he wrote about civil disobedience and how a person should obey a just law but disobey an unjust law – and be prepared to take whatever punishment is given for that disobedience. The question is how to tell a just law from an unjust law? King wrote:

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law.

I need to stop there for a moment. Over the last 30 years as we LGBT people were fighting for our rights to live as we want and to love who we want our oppressors said that we violated eternal and natural law. They claimed natural law because they said having a sexual relationship with someone of the same sex was a violation of nature. Never mind that researchers found that more than 400 species had been observed to engage in same-sex relations.

As for eternal law, King surely means religious law. And conservative Christians still oppress us, claiming religious law. For example, about a month from now the United Methodist Church will hold a General Conference to decide how to treat LGBT people, or split because they can’t come to an agreement. There were recent news articles about the wife of the vice nasty guy got a job at a religious school that bans LGBT students and teachers.

So I don’t agree that a law should be determined to be just or unjust by whether if follows eternal or natural law. Thankfully, Dr. King goes on:

Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust.

Sigh. I can hear people saying (though not in these words) that discriminating against someone uplifts the perpetrator because that action allows them to feel superior and isn’t that uplifting? King says no.

All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.

Ah, there we are.

Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an "I it" relationship for an "I thou" relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man's tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong.

Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state's segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured?

Yes, legal is not the same as moral. Thank you, Dr. King, for the lesson.

A Spartacus moment

The conservative North Carolina legislature passed a law a while ago prohibiting pulling down public monuments (as in Confederate monuments) without their permission. A group in Durham pulled down a statue of a Confederate soldier anyway. Warrants were issued for the actual perpetrators, perhaps 7 people. When they showed up at the courthouse to be arrested they were joined by maybe 200 more activists who said, “Arrest me too!” Officials declined to do so and most arrested were released without bond. The Democratic governor could decide not to prosecute.

Such a huge fine

Back in January Rev. Maurice Blanchard, a gay Baptist minister, and his partner Dominique James staged a sit-in at a county clerk's office in Louisville because they were denied a marriage license. They were arrested. Their trial was last week. They were convicted in criminal court. Their sentence: a one penny fine. And that only because the judge told the jury a conviction required a fine. It appears the judge then used his discretion and reduced the fine to zero.

Not ashamed, not finished

Several months ago Lieutenant Dan Choi said he is gay. Proceedings to dismiss him from the military have begun, but not yet complete, though it is surprising it is taking so long. Choi spent time away from his unit, using that time to talk a lot publicly about the injustices done to gay people. Choi was recently back training with his unit for deployment this summer. This is background for this week's events, so I'm sorry I don't have links to it all.

Recently, the Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT) policy that requires gays to be closeted while they serve in the military has been debated in Congress and mentioned by Obama, though many supporters in Congress say Obama wants the whole thing to disappear for the rest of the year -- when there are likely more GOP members of Congress and the policy would be harder to repeal.

Not only are many gays annoyed with Obama (that I have written about before), they are also annoyed that the Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the top gay lobbying organization, would rather play nice with politicians than to actually do something of substance for gays.

All that came to a head on Thursday. HRC and celebrity Kathy Griffin held a rally in Washington in support of repealing DADT. Dan Choi, in uniform, crashed the rally and asked to speak to the crowd. He had enough of talk and it was time for action. He led the crowd (without HRC or Griffin) to the White House where he said he wasn't going to leave until DADT was repealed. He and another officer then chained themselves to the White House fence. Police and Secret Service let the demonstration continue for an hour before arresting Choi and the other officer.

A couple fine photos here.

The head of HRC was miffed that Choi stole his thunder. Poor baby.

Rather than posting bond and being released, both officers spent the night in jail. It seems that Choi was not even allowed to make a phone call. At the hearing the next day both requested a trial rather than simply paying a fine. When asked to give his plea Choi said, "I'm not ashamed. I'm not finished. Not guilty."

Choi's military career may indeed be over now with this civil disobedience. Fellow soldiers are reportedly annoyed that he took part in politics while in uniform. Even so, it looks like he has a promising career as an activist. This may also be the catalyst for another civil rights movement, this time on behalf of gays.

Also stirring the pot at the same time were several activists working for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) which prevents employers for firing someone simply for being gay. The act reportedly has enough votes to pass the House, yet Speaker Pelosi refuses to schedule the vote. A big reason is that House Dems have stuck their necks out for some controversial votes and the Senate refuses to take up the issues. To demand action these activists entered Pelosi's office and refused to leave until she scheduled a vote or they were arrested. Police eventually came.

Some gay activists were annoyed the ENDA protest was done this week since Pelosi is so busy getting the health insurance reform bill across the finish line. Even though some specific gay-friendly clauses were omitted, the whole thing will help gays as it will help millions of others.

On being released, Choi said, "There was no freer moment than being in that prison. It was freeing for me. I thought of all the other people that were still trapped, that were still handcuffed and fettered in their hearts."

The gay civil rights movement has a new hero and leader.

You keep saying it will be done soon

Having spent a great deal of time writing software and dealt with salespeople I understand the term vaporware (hardware is the computer, software is the programs, so vaporware is empty promises -- software that is promised but the release date never gets any closer). Sounds like what Obama and Dems have been promising gays.

Health insurance for a gay spouse is taxed like ordinary income. That doesn't happen to a straight spouse. That tax was removed from the House version of the health care overhaul bill. Harry Reid just added it back in to the Senate version to secure the last few votes. With health insurance premiums running into the thousands, this is a hefty tax.

This news prompted the first commenter to wonder if it is time for our revolution. A responder discusses non-violent resistance, which worked so well for women's right to vote and black civil rights. These efforts worked because the oppressors didn't want to be seen as oppressors. Can it work for gays? Maybe not, because our oppressors still insist they have the moral high ground. I must disagree with that claim because the bible was also used to claim it was morally proper to enslave blacks and to keep women in their place. Some people insist the morality of those claims.

Even if some gays decided violent resistance was proper, the rest of the gay community would quickly disavow and disown the perpetrators.