A place of victory over hate

When the horrific shooting happened in Uvalde, Texas last May law enforcement officers waited almost an hour before going in to confront the shooter. In the meantime, a lot more children died. Walter Einenkel of Daily Kos discussed a recent report from the Texas Tribune on what gave all those officers so much pause. The shooter had an AR-15 assault rifle. If they had just gone in after him with guns blazing there would have been a lot of dead police too. They had to wait until they had something with better coverage. The AR-15 is designed to murder as easily as possible while being as easy as possible to carry. Its purpose is mass murder. Gun people defend it. Some Members of Congress have been wearing AR-15 lapel pins because they admire what it can do. And they want to ban kids from attending drag shows to protect them. Nick Anderson of Kos Comics has one of a billboard saying “The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. – NRA” and beneath it are the Uvalde officers commenting that the shooter had an AR-15 and what that means for their efforts to take him out. The Recount tweeted:

The Florida NAACP chapter voted unanimously to seek permission from its national headquarters to issue a travel advisory for Florida over what it deems "draconian" legislation and practices related to race and gender.

That brings to mind the Green Book of safe travel used by black people in the mid 20th century. In a pundit roundup, Greg Dworkin of Kos quoted the Public Religion Research Institute, which says even as the country is more polarized on LGBTQ rights, there is more acceptance for those rights.

Eight in ten Americans (80%) favor laws that would protect gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people against discrimination in jobs, public accommodations, and housing. This includes 48% who strongly support such laws. About one in five Americans (18%) oppose these laws, including 7% who strongly oppose them.

Support has grown. It had been 69% in 2018.

Overwhelming shares of Democrats (90%) and independents (82%), as well as two-thirds of Republicans (66%), favor nondiscrimination provisions for LGBTQ people.

Einenkel reported that Martin County School Board in Florida met in an hours-long session to hear about banning books. The person that got the most attention was 100 year old Grace Linn, who spoke from her wheelchair. She spoke of her husband who was killed in WWII while...

defending our democracy, Constitution, and freedoms. One of the freedoms that the Nazis crushed was the freedom to read the books. ... Banned books and burning books are both the same. Both are done for the same reason: fear of knowledge. Fear, not freedom. Fear, not liberty. Fear is control. My husband died as a father of freedom. I am the mother of liberty. Banned books need to be proudly displayed and protected from school boards like this. Thank you.

As she spoke someone held up a quilt she had made featuring books that have been targeted or banned. The books should be proudly displayed, protected, and read. In another pundit roundup Dworkin had a couple interesting quotes. The first is from Ron Brownstein writing in The Atlantic. He wrote about analysis done in each Congressional district, rating each whether it was low or high in racial diversity and in education of its white residents (because their education is a lot more significant of behavior than that of the rest of the population). Republicans have become quite dependent on “lo-lo” districts, low in both measurements. They hold 142 such districts in the House, two thirds of their House seats, compared to 21 such seats held by Democrats. That explains the Republican shift from small-government arguments to unremitting culture war. Reps from these types of districts include Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert, and Matt Gaetz whose sole purpose seems to be throwing culture war bombs. The right accuses the left of identity politics, but this suggests identity politics is their core. Dworkin also quoted TIME who wrote about Louis DeStroy, um, Dejoy. He was big news in 2020 for appearing to dismantle the Postal Service to foul up mailed ballots to nudge the election towards the nasty guy. But this report says the Dejoy may have a good side. There was a big bill to save the Postal Service finances and add some union-friendly things. And DeJoy was instrumental in getting 120 House and 29 Senate Republicans to approve it. Bad Baltic Takes is a Twitter user devoted to correcting bad takes on the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. This particular correction is to provide context for an event in 1989. Under the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 Hitler and Stalin divided Europe for the two of them to conquer. Hitler kept the West busy while Stalin invaded the Baltics and perpetrated crimes on the citizens (yeah, very much like what’s going on in Ukraine). Close to 50 years later Gorbachev and Glasnost loosened restrictions on speech and details of the pact began to come out. Gorbachev thought letting people talk about it would allow him to keep his empire. Instead, it made the people more bold. And in 1989, 50 years after the Pact was signed, the three countries (without the aid of social media) organized The Baltic Way, a human chain that stretched across all three countries for a distance of 675 kilometers (over 400 miles). It took a quarter of the population to complete the chain. This was a significant step in achieving independence. And it became the inspiration for later protests, such as the Hong Kong Way that took place 30 years after the Baltic Way.

We should remember not just the Baltic Way protesters but also what they wanted us to remember. That the Nazi-Soviet collusion happened, in violation of international law, & it unleashed unimaginable horrors further across Europe. ... While writing this thread, I stepped into the Museum of Occupations in Tallinn. "You are going to see evil in here," the guide explains at the start. "But this is not a place of hate," it continues. "It's about our victory over it."