☠️🤮 “ANTI-WOKE” IS A COWARDLY SLOGAN FOR JIM CROW, WHITE SUPREMACIST, RACISM — So, Why Is The So-Called “Mainstream Media” Giving 21st Century GOP “Dixiecrats” Like Ron DeSantis & Greg Abbott A “Free Pass?”

Allison Wiltz
Allison Wiltz
Author, Medium
PHOTO: Medium.com

Allison Wiltz writes in Medium:

https://link.medium.com/eUKQHqxW1xb

The anti-woke crusade is rooted in fear and ignorance, a mnemonic placeholder for the bigoted things most people wouldn’t dare say aloud. Black Americans have been using the term “woke” since the 1940s to describe a state of awareness toward racist policies and worldviews that negatively impact the Black community. However, many White people now use the term as a derogative slur, a cowardly way of spilling the beans while denying any beans were spilled.

. . . .

Saying you are anti-woke is a way of admitting you are anti-Black without feeling the backlash many outspoken racists receive. Likewise, anti-woke crusaders are promoting anti-democratic policies by controlling what topics schools and businesses can read and discuss without getting labeled a fascist for circumventing the First Amendment of the Constitution. America was founded by White men interested in securing their rights while denying that same access to Black people, women, and racial and ethnic minority groups. We don’t have to worship the founding fathers blindly, nor should any American. It seems many conservatives are afraid of saying the quiet part out loud, of admitting that their crusade on “woke” is really an attempt to diminish the gains made by the Civil Rights Movement, of framing progress as regressive. Americans should challenge more conservatives to define “woke” on their own terms because the more descriptions they provide, the more we can see through the smoke and mirrors.

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Those with Medium access can read the complete article at the link.

Here’s one of my favorite comments on this article, from Walter Rhein: “When people say they are ‘anti-woke,’ I interrupt them and say ‘You mean ‘anti-black.’ They become enraged and act like they’re the victims (like racists always do).”

Cowardly insurrectionist racist oppressors and chronic liars bogusly claiming they are “victims,” perhaps of “the biggest witch hunt on history?” Sound familiar?

The far right’s war of hate directed against the “other” started with the White Nationalist war on immigrants. It’s called “Dred Scottification” of the other. Yet, the mainstream media downplays the real message and “normalizes” these vile attacks on our democracy. They “whitewash” the dangerous message of hate being promoted by DeSantis, Abbott, and their ilk.

Ron DeSantis Dave Grandlund PoliticalCartoons.com Republished under license Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are “campaigning” on an agenda of racism, hate, and White Supremacist grievance not seen since the late Gov. George Wallace. Yet, mainstream media has largely “normalized” that which would have been unacceptable and unthinkable only a few years ago!
Ron DeSantis
Dave Grandlund
PoliticalCartoons.com
Republished under license
Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump are “campaigning” on an agenda of racism, hate, and White Supremacist grievance not seen since the late Gov. George Wallace. Yet, mainstream media has largely “normalized” that which would have been unacceptable and unthinkable only a few years ago!

Even the Biden Administration fails to “connect the dots” between the White Nationalist restrictionist war on asylum seekers of color they have adopted from Trump and Miller and the extremist right’s attack on Blacks, Asians, Hispanics, LGBTQ, women, teachers,  Jews, Muslims, health care professionals, journalists, and everyone else “White Supremacist nation” perceives as a threat to their kakistocracy. In that way, this Dem Administration becomes part of problem, not the solution.

🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

03-09-23

⚖️(IN)JUSTICE IN AMERICA 🇺🇸— Why Justice Amy Coney Barrett & A Whole Bunch Of Other Federal Judges 👨🏻‍⚖️👩‍⚖️Who Have “Tuned Out” Humanity Don’t Belong On The Bench!

 

Dan Canon
Dan Canon Esquire
Civil Rights Lawyer, Law Professor, & Writer
Photo: Medium.com

https://medium.com/i-taught-the-law/i-argued-a-shooting-death-case-in-front-of-amy-coney-barrett-89b4165f7df2

Dan Canon writes on medium.com:

. . . .

Perhaps you’ve reserved some optimism for the whole “Barrett’s a mom and a Catholic so there must be some compassion there” thing. Sorry, but no. In her confirmation hearings, she spoke about how the George Floyd video was “very, very personal” for her family, and that she and her children “wept together” over what must have been the zillionth police murder in her history as a lawyer and mother. But her mentor, the late Antonin Scalia, seemed to think it was constitutional to put innocent people to death, despite his ultra-Catholicism. There’s no reason to believe that any sort of ideological consistency will prevail simply because of a judge’s familial status or bizarre metaphysical beliefs, and those factors made no apparent difference in Brad’s case.

Here’s where this gets complicated: In saying that being part of this horrendous decision should disqualify a judge from serving on the Supreme Court, by extension, I’m saying that damn near every federal judge is similarly unqualified. Almost none of them believe that cops should be held accountable for killing mentally ill people who call for help. This sort of thinking, in which cops are extended every benefit of every doubt, feasible or unfeasible, is the norm. Barrett didn’t even write the opinion in Brad’s case. It was written by a liberal judge who, like all her colleagues (of whatever political persuasion), was willing to write the police a blank check. That’s how our courts have operated for decades, and even in a post-BLM society, few of those in robes have the intestinal fortitude to do anything different.

So I am unmoved by Justice Barrett’s faith. I am unmoved by her status as a working mother of seven. I am particularly unmoved by her fake expression of sympathy for George Floyd, whose case she had nothing to do with, when she couldn’t spare any for the people who actually appear before her. I’m unmoved because I’ve seen so little compassion for grieving parents like Matt and Gina throughout my career, from any federal judge, let alone the Federalist Society drones who have lately taken over the judiciary. The basic inability to do what’s right for families like the Kings should be disqualifying. Not just for Amy Coney Barrett, but for the whole lot of ‘em.

A version of this originally appeared in LEO Weekly.

WRITTEN BY

Dan Canon

Civil rights lawyer and law prof, writing about the Midwest, the untold horrors of the justice system, and the ongoing battle between the law and humanity.

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Read Dan’s complete article chronicling the tone-deaf mishandling of the police shooting death of a young man (his clients’ son) suffering from mental health issues.

This echoes what I’ve been saying on Courtside about the need for a “new breed of better, more progressive Federal Judges” who recognize the compelling human side of the law and why the Constitutional requirements of due process, equal protection, and fundamental fairness are there in the first place. They exist to protect individuals from tyranny and government overreach, not to be ignored, watered down, or woodenly distinguished away to protect government abusers from accountability or to further ideological agendas (primarily, but not exclusively those developed by right wingers) out of touch with the most vulnerable levels of humanity they are supposed to be serving.

Life tenure means that Coney Barrett and the rest of her unqualified colleagues will be around for a long time. But, change needs to start somewhere, now! 

In my experience, internal pushback, dissent, and constant confrontation of the complicit, complacent, judicial status quo with an aggressive implementation of due process, fundamental fairness, and a commitment to human rights and the best interpretations of the law can over time play a critical role in improving the law, changing results, and perhaps most important, saving lives!⚖️🗽👩‍⚖️🧑🏽‍⚖️👨🏻‍⚖️🇺🇸 That, not the hollow ideological agendas of Coney Barrett and others like her, is what “good judging” is really all about!

Intentional lack of compassion, empathy, and humanity (“Dred Scottification” of the “other”) have been themes of Trump, Miller, Wolf, Sessions, Barr, Rosenstein, Nielsen, Pompeo and the other neo-fascist toadies and moral misfits who have gleefully served the regime over the past four years. But, lack of overall resolve and courage to stand up and uniformly and authoritatively “just say no” to these toxic, anti-American, anti-humanity policies and to hold the “perps” accountable for their systemic lawlessness has plagued the Federal Judiciary, with a feckless and often downright complicit Supremes’ majority “leading” the way.

The current sorry state of our democracy, where GOP demagogues, who falsely swore to uphold our Constitution, openly spread lies, knowingly false narratives, and total BS in an attempt to incite violence, undermine our duly elected incoming President, and destroy democratic institutions, including the courts, is in part a reflection of the sad failure of our life-tenured Federal Judiciary to perform its core Constitutional function. That is, to stand up for the Constitution, the rule of law, and individual law human rights in the face failures by the other two branches of Government to uphold their Constitutional responsibilities.

Compare the (finally) unified position of the judiciary on the frivolous election challenges by Trump and his cronies with the failure to stand up for the legal and human rights of asylum seekers, refugees, immigrants, and migrants from the “git go.” Even now, the Courts have failed to sanction Trump and his lawyers for their unethical behavior in bringing frivolous civil suits, with no supporting evidence, for the specific purpose of undermining a free and fair election and using the legal system to attack the legitimacy of the duly elected President-elect and his incoming Administration. “Corruptly weaponizing the law for improper purposes” is clearly inappropriate and unethical. Yet, folks like Rudy and Sydney Powell retain their law licenses and are free to continue to abuse and undermine the system with frivolous litigation.

Dan points to the “ongoing battle between the law and humanity.” That’s the problem! The law should and must be about defending and advancing humanity in the face of tyranny and injustice. We need judges who stand for human justice. For, as MLK, Jr., said “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere!”

Better judges for a better America! 🇺🇸Not just a slogan; a requirement for our democracy to survive!

⚖️🗽🇺🇸Due Process Forever!

PWS

01-03-21

🇺🇸🗽EIGHT DECADES AGO, “THE GREATEST GENERATION” FOUGHT A WAR AGAINST FASCISM, RACISM, HATE & AUTHORITARIANISM  — Now The Succeeding Generations Are Fighting At The Ballot Box To Remove A Fascist Government From Control Of Our Country!

 

Kitanya Harrison
Kitanya Harrison
Writer
Photo from Twitter

https://gen.medium.com/should-you-wish-a-fascist-well-1aa0b9a22d03

By Kitanya Harrison @ Medium:

. . . .

A plague was the check and balance, not the rule of law, not civility. Trump and Republicans showed hubris in the face of a force of nature that cannot be gaslit, bullied, or emotionally manipulated. A virus demands you engage with it truthfully. You can’t bluster your way out of infection. Trump’s lies and arrogance regarding Covid-19 have cost 210,000 Americans their lives. Those lies and arrogance have finally caught up with him, and he may pay a heavy price. Some people think that’s poetic justice. They are being rebuked by those who think you should never be that callous, not even to a fascist.

Fascists know how to weaponize the norms governing civility to gain and maintain control over others. They know how to exploit sympathy. They know if they pretend to play nice sometimes, people believe they’ll begin to adhere to these norms and stop their harm. It’s a con. It works, though. That’s why four years into the Trump regime, reporters and pundits are still, embarrassingly, talking about his change of tone and his becoming more “presidential” any time he displays the barest modicum of decorum. This dynamic lowers the bar all the way down to Hell. Playing along is always the wrong move.

. . . .

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Read the rest of the article at the link.

Excellent summary of how fascism works and how the “mainstream” keeps giving it a “pass” and normalizing severely abnormal, anti-social, illegal behavior by Trump and his toadies. 

Just look at yesterday’s Courtside posting — kids and legal refugees continue to suffer while Sessions collects his pension, Hamilton continues to plan criminal enterprises on our dollar, and Rosenstein racks up the big bucks pretending like his venture into child abuse and crimes against humanity were just “normal activities of a senior Government official at the DOJ.” Not normal! Not acceptable!

History tells us what happens to those who “play along to get along.” The U.S. Olympic Committee turning an intentionally blind eye to Hitler’s virulent anti-Semitism so that the U.S. could participate in “Hitler’s Big Show” — the 1936 Olympics. British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain selling out the Czechs, babbling about “peace in our time” on the eve of the bloodiest war in world history, and pretending that Hitler was “just another German politician” with “traditional” nationalist aspirations.

This Fall, vote Trump and the GOP out at all levels of Government. It might be the last chance to save our democracy from fascism and to save more lives from the malfeasance, ignorance, hate, and evil of Trump and his GOP enablers.

 

PWS

10-08-20

🏴‍☠️THE PLAGUE STATES OF AMERICA: Where ☠️ Plague, Stupidity, & Inhumanity Rule, & Your U.S. Passport Is Largely Worthless (Except, If You Are A Person of Color To, Perhaps, Protect You From “Expedited Removal” By ICE & Trump’s Complicit Supremes)! — Welcome To The “Trump Hotel California!”🤮

 

Last thing I remember

I was running for the door

I had to find the passage back

To the place I was before

“Relax”, said the night man

“We are programmed to receive

You can check out any time you like

But you can never leave”

—— From “Hotel California” by The Eagles

Source: LyricFind

Songwriters: Glenn Lewis Frey / Don Felder / Donald Hugh Henley

Hotel California lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG Rights Management

Full Lyrics & Music here:  https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjZqsKZpcXqAhU0oXIEHaegAiQQwqsBMAp6BAgLEAQ&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DvcmjDPDOk7c&usg=AOvVaw3ay3l2d6R_UlBVOg1k6Fnz

https://medium.com/@indica/the-plague-states-of-america-53b20678a80e?source=email-dafc55faa6fd-1594452458433-digest.reader——0-50——————1f52bfff_711d_4def_918f_7e9b8eddea74-1-1b0c1765_594d_4c73_8665_f93e3a786b9f—-&sectionName=top

American Passports Are Worthless Now (Map)

Oh the places you can’t go

pastedGraphic.png

Indi Samarajiva

Follow

America is not united anymore and it’s barely a state. They have crashed right through failed state into a plague state, unwelcome across the world. This has been predicted, including here. Now it has come to pass. Just look at the map.

Americans have gone from having access to most of the world to being banned from most of it. Today, Americans are only allowed in a few Caribbean islands and the Balkans. An American passport is now worthless. Worse than worthless, it’s a plague.

In the absence of a humane government, America is now ruled by COVID-19. Welcome to the Plague States of America.

It’s too late

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<img alt=”Image for post” class=”s t u hk ai” src=”https://miro.medium.com/max/6800/1*EoSrvKpq71W0jTbJCKmBfw.png” width=”3400″ height=”2400″ srcSet=”https://miro.medium.com/max/552/1*EoSrvKpq71W0jTbJCKmBfw.png 276w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1104/1*EoSrvKpq71W0jTbJCKmBfw.png 552w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1280/1*EoSrvKpq71W0jTbJCKmBfw.png 640w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*EoSrvKpq71W0jTbJCKmBfw.png 700w” sizes=”700px”/>

Only America has self-inflicted a second wave

I think it is difficult for Americans to understand that they are, to use an epidemiological term, completely fucked. COVID-19 could have been managed in January, or February, or even now, but not a full year later, in January 2021. Given than you need a functioning government to manage this pandemic, that’s the soonest Americans can get one.

It’s far too late.

The most reliable projections are saying 200,000 dead and 50 million infected by election day in November. Even these projections struggle to account for completely irrational federal actions like denigrating masks, pushing to reopen early, and pushing students back into schools. This is not the absence of public health, this is its opposite.

It is, in effect, governance by COVID-19. Not a failed state. A plague state.

Even after election day, Donald Trump will still be in power for nearly 3 months, until January 20th. Besides impeaching a dead-duck President, there’s nothing America can do but wait, while COVID-19 grows ever stronger. Grows completely out of control. In a pandemic, days matter, hours matter. A year is entirely too late.

America will be lucky to exit this pandemic with less than a million dead and 100 million infected. The living will be lucky to exit their country within the next five years.

The worthless passport

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<img alt=”Image for post” class=”s t u hk ai” src=”https://miro.medium.com/max/3200/1*dcgKqItSATd-t8a1R42Sbw.jpeg” width=”1600″ height=”1137″ srcSet=”https://miro.medium.com/max/552/1*dcgKqItSATd-t8a1R42Sbw.jpeg 276w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1104/1*dcgKqItSATd-t8a1R42Sbw.jpeg 552w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1280/1*dcgKqItSATd-t8a1R42Sbw.jpeg 640w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*dcgKqItSATd-t8a1R42Sbw.jpeg 700w” sizes=”700px”/>

Welcome to the club. Post-colonial bullshit and racism have made my Sri Lankan passport worthless for years. Now the American passport is worse. America has crashed straight through the third world into the fourth.

Here is a list, in total, of all the places Americans can go. Most of them are small Caribbean islands.

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<img alt=”Image for post” class=”s t u hk ai” src=”https://miro.medium.com/max/3200/1*ddImUOx1j0smBVcsVeqbPg.png” width=”1600″ height=”1022″ srcSet=”https://miro.medium.com/max/552/1*ddImUOx1j0smBVcsVeqbPg.png 276w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1104/1*ddImUOx1j0smBVcsVeqbPg.png 552w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1280/1*ddImUOx1j0smBVcsVeqbPg.png 640w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*ddImUOx1j0smBVcsVeqbPg.png 700w” sizes=”700px”/>

ALL THE PLACES YOU CAN GO

1. Albania              |  15. Lebanon

2. Antigua and Barbuda  |  16. Maldives

3. Aruba                |  17. Mexico

4. The Bahamas          |  18. North Macedonia

5. Barbados             |  19. St. Lucia

6. Belize               |  20. St. Maarten

7. Bermuda              |  21. St. Vincent &

8. Croatia              |  22. Serbia

9. Dominican Republic   |  23. Tanzania

10. Ecuador*            |  24. Turkey

11. French Polynesia    |  25. Turks &

12. Ireland*            |  26. Ukraine

13. Jamaica             |  27. UAE*

14. Kosovo              |  28. UK*

*14 day quarantine required, not included in map.

American now have access to exactly two dozen states, four more (*) if they want to endure a 14-day quarantine on the end. Americans have gone from world power to getting the side-eye from Ecuador in a matter of months. Right now Americans are only really welcome on remote islands or at corralled resorts in Mexico, where they can be isolated from everyone else.

It’s not that other nations don’t want to welcome Americans, they just can’t. The point of a passport is that a sovereign power vouches for its bearer, but America can’t vouch for the health of their citizens at all. America’s public health regime is far less trustworthy than Liberia’s (which is actually quite good). Its sovereign is mad.

At the same time, you can’t trust Americans. Americans have poor hygiene (low masking rate) and at least 40% of the population can’t be trusted to even believe that COVID-19 exists, let alone to take it seriously. They’re likely to refuse testing, not report symptoms, break quarantine, and generally follow rules. Americans have a toxic combination of ignorance and arrogance that makes them unwelcome travelers.

They have a lot of problems, and they’re bringing those problems with them. Some of them, I assume, are good people, but it doesn’t matter. It’s a plague passport. Return to sender.

The Plague States

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<img alt=”Image for post” class=”s t u hk ai” src=”https://miro.medium.com/max/4000/1*weJ8xV5Wt2kCaKGnLXj4Hg.png” width=”2000″ height=”1149″ srcSet=”https://miro.medium.com/max/552/1*weJ8xV5Wt2kCaKGnLXj4Hg.png 276w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1104/1*weJ8xV5Wt2kCaKGnLXj4Hg.png 552w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1280/1*weJ8xV5Wt2kCaKGnLXj4Hg.png 640w, https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*weJ8xV5Wt2kCaKGnLXj4Hg.png 700w” sizes=”700px”/>

That’s the near future of the United States. An epidemic that spreads largely unchecked until next year. A population to unprotected and ignorant to be allowed anywhere else. A world that largely suppresses the virus — from Mongolia to Ghana to Trinidad & Tobago — but which has to keep America in isolation.

In the end, Trump did what he said. He built a wall around America and made the world pay for it. He just never told Americans that they’d be stuck inside. Welcome to the Plague States of America. You can check out, but you can never leave.

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Check out the map accompanying the original article at the above link.

This November, vote like your life depends on it. Because it does!

PWS

07-11-20