“Stop, dear. You are frightening the children.”
is a line written into the family script
of every sit-com ever writ.
Bullies have been ever near creating fear
over those who power they sense may be
greater than their single autocracy;
built into the democracy of the family.
Fear does not subside once children leave the nest.
It persists and blankets adult nakedness.
The brain is an amazing protector
storing fear in a separate chamber outside reason’s own.
Reaching the age of reason is not enough alone
to overcome the constancy of threats that cut to bone.
in family sit-coms Dad was chided, even derided
when his supremacy and autocracy was on display.
Mother and children were filled with dismay
which they treated with complacency
and placated with plots created in funny ways.
Mother tried to soothe the savage beast who though it great fun
to keep his wife and children under the gun.
Week after week, the same battle waged
to bring family under his control.
Week after week, mother and children placated the fool
who tried to instill autocratic rule against the family
whose adhesion to democratic rule, guided by equity,
acknowledged “one for all and all for one” the glue
that held family together against mob rule.
The Republican Party learned a different lesson than I
sitting wide-eyed as a child watching sit-coms.
The Republican Party delights in bullies’ power
to create fear hour-after-hour in the political sit-com
“now daily at a” FOX “news station near you.”
They found it great fun to run games on the wife,
the children, neighbors they despised;
even, neighborhoods and entire nations;
making citizens cry as they watch democracy die.
The vote is going by the way unless we stay the hand
threatening us with Republican absolute rule
Life is not a sit-com. The vote is our greatest tool
to fight the autocratic fool whose fear weighs so heavily
upon those watching freedom-lovers placate the man
who would deny the vote in any way he can.
Even when reason returns, the fear remains locked in place
in a brain which keeps it safe for future use.
The only safe response can be
to stop those frightening the children.
Fear only ends when we stand and fight,
defeat it and subdue it; and thus, destroy what causes fright
so it cannot linger in a safe place.
We must lock away the fear-mongerers instead.
We are losing our children; and, too many can find no safe space.
“Dear Republicans, you are frightening the children.”
State’s Rights and Fascist Court ?
I just ate an entire bag of Milano double dark chocolate cookies. Better that than crying in outrage that separation of church and state has overcome our constitutional rights as white politicians within the Republican Party exploit the personal faith of voters to retain their control of government. Why? Because of their racism and sexism, and gender fears. And, to allow corporate and private wealth to stay in power through them, personally rewarding them financially and supporting filling their campaign chests.
These protagonists blocked the Equal Rights Amendment for women in my youth. Women finally got the right to vote but it and other civil rights have never explicitly been assured. This is one reason the privacy rights under the constitution was used to explain why women have a legal civil right to decide their health care rights and family planning rights.
This same reasoning was used to protect a couple’s right to use birth control. That right is now also facing elimination according to Justice Thomas’ dissent.
The Supreme Court is our greatest and final protector of our freedoms and civil rights. Today, the court threw women to the wolves. They invaded the privacy right of a woman to her own body. They destroyed a woman’s right to safeguard her mental and physical health. Her rights no longer belong to her. They belong to state legislatures. women no longer have rights equal to men in this nation.
We have been here before. Despite the end of enslavement of African-Americans recognition of their civil rights took another 100 years to secure. And, those rights, including the right to vote are again, still, under siege. The Voting Rights Act has been eviscerated. Will the supreme Court’s States Rights Rule now be applied to any individual’s right to equality and freedoms? This case opens that door. The decision today directs us through that door.
The violence and intimidation against women is now supported by our Supreme Court, using its judicial powers. I fear it will soon be the same for people of color, LGBTQT community … indeed any group the white supremacist leaders supported by our churches think they have a right to control.
Today’s decision is far worse than overturning abortion rights. It overturns equal rights. I fear it is not only women who are under threat. Our very identity as a free society , as an American society, was destroyed today.
I am out of cookies. Out of words. Only tears remain. Fascist Court? Not usually 2 words that go together. They do now!
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Tagged as abortion, campaigns, contraception, Dobbs v. Jackson, Equal rights, ERA, fascism, politics, racism, Republican Party, ROE V. WADE, voting rights