I'm just gonna keep putting links; you guys get the point.
We have always been this country. This country has always been doing this.
We have been primed for this moment, and every step away from these horrific histories has been worth celebrating but not a single one has been inevitable.
Absolutely. That's problem with framing "it's always been like this": "always" erases the huge efforts of those who worked hard to make a horrific situation better. I prefer to say we owe it to those who fought before us to do everything we can to protect the gains they made, against odds.
Thank you! There is an incredible immaturity, naivety, or perhaps willful ignorance when people proclaim, “This is not who we are.” It’s past time to own it and to do better.
This is in Isabel Wilkerson's 2020 book "Caste." On p 78 she tells of a committee of "Nazi bureaucrats" that met in Berlin in 1934 to discuss how to isolate the Jewish people. "...the first topic on the agenda was the United States and what they could learn from it." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste:_The_Origins_of_Our_Discontents
The American cult of the individual &exceptionalism over community good is the heart of it. Kids are taught that their rights are more important than anything else. We tell them how special they are, how they deserve everything, & when they don't get it & see the world is NOT fair, they snap.
I feel like the only way we have chance to make lasting change is to abolish Electoral College, which bakes in minority (white supremacist/broligarch) rule & Citizens United, which enables massive corruption, purchase of politicians & malevolent foreign influence.
It chaps my hide that Wyoming has fewer people than San Francisco & gets outsized say in Senate. Yes, I realize it was deliberate, but has allowed minority rule.
I know. Corrupt people don't willingly give up power. We need grassroots organization to take back red state legislatures. 2/3 of House/Senate & 38 states to ratify amendments is an extremely heavy lift.
Comments
SHUT DOWN EVERYTHING until these bastards leave!
SURROUND THE WHITE HOUSE AND THE CAPITAL. NO ONE IN, NO ONE OUT.
Block the EXECUTIVE OFFICE BUILDING to prevent them from entering through the tunnels.
#protest #blockade
Americans are every bit as capable of committing atrocities. They have had a lot of practice.
We have always been this country. This country has always been doing this.
We have been primed for this moment, and every step away from these horrific histories has been worth celebrating but not a single one has been inevitable.
📌
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste:_The_Origins_of_Our_Discontents
https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/what.htm
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiskey_Rebellion?wprov=sfti1#
That is who we are (too), right from the start.
we got to a better place, we're swinging back fast to a much worse place that rhymes with places we have been in the past.
probably complete with new horrors.