Aquarian Weekly
5/24/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
KIDS ARE FINE – PARENTS ARE FUCKED

Our steady decline of anti-intellectualism in this god-forsaken country has reached new and despicable lows. Seemingly every day in the fascist sinkhole that is Florida its brainless dipshit governor, Ron DeSantis robs children of information in schools. SCHOOLS! Banning books. Cancelling curriculum. Learning now is up to the fucking governor? One guy. Fantastic. The already bent bastion of meat-grinding mediocrity that is school, wherein we learn that Christopher Columbus discovered something he never discovered and that we pledge allegiance to some bizarre concept of freedom that our government is taking away, is in enough trouble. I have news for this moron and the “disgruntled” parents who rile idiots like DeSantis up, so he can consolidate power and prove to his daddy that he’s worth a shit – our kids are fine. Trust them to learn. Protecting them from truth and information is dangerous. Aren’t we stupid enough? You want more slack-jawed dupes to believe elections are stolen, so they arm themselves and storm a federal building, then spend years in prison wondering what the fuck just happened? Then keep this up.

And that’s what they want – keep you stupid, so they can sell you cheap beer and bad movies and no agenda to help you besides robbing you of your rights and lecturing you on patriotism. 

Your kids, and by kids, I mean tweens and teenagers, but I would also argue even grammar school aged, are far more comfortable with their sexuality than you, and they’re willing to accept the differences – gender, race, religion – in their classmates. You don’t have to ban books that introduce “difficult” subjects or jail teachers who speak to gender identity. This is the same nonsense as the Scopes Trial and the banning of the teaching of science over religion. Religion is a failed intellectual concept, and our kids need to know this. If they want to worship whatever idol they choose or an interpretation of that idol, then fine, but don’t fuck with my kid’s pursuit of truth and knowledge. 

You want to talk morality? I believe it is immoral to deny children the right to learn. Okay, if some kids are intimidated and/or disturbed by information, then sure, if their parents insist, pull them out of class. But why should the majority of children suffer because people are afraid of their kids learning more than they did when they were twelve or becoming better, more evolved and intellectually stimulated humans than them?

Let’s face it: This is a parent’s issue, not a school or kids or teachers’ issue. Why does every fucked up, half-assed insecure bigot get a voice in this country and those of us trying to be free thinkers are relegated to writing expletive-laced falderal like this. How long, oh, lord, can this go on?

And what about our Black students? Why should they be denied their history – however horrifying and insane it is? Do we wipe out the entire backstory of this country so middle-class parents and their sheltered children aren’t offended or upset? No one hates white people because we learn about the systemic pogrom heaped upon a people for decades. Get over yourself. Such self-important, privileged whiners. If you feel guilty, that’s on you. Go to therapy, read a book. Leave the rest of us alone to understand our failures to become better humans.

We are passing down this damage to every generation that does not face-up to the sins of their forefathers. Period. Not just the American experiment, which is five minutes old compared to the madness of civilization, but the whole of humanity. Education is not just numbers, dates, grammar and whatever the fuck gym is, it is expanding horizons, not shutting down the view, it is titillating our neurons to think for ourselves, not placating the ramblings of an ancient superstition or whatever the latest Right Wing TV guy thinks. Pretty soon there will be no one left who remembers how close the world came to fascism, while fascism dominates one of the two political parties in this country right now! Kids need to know this. See the signs of evil, know what the person next to them might be capable of – for good or ill. They for sure DO NOT need to be protected by the likes of you. And they sure as hell don’t need some uptight vote-sniffing grotesque politician making that call. Get off your high horse, lend hand or get the fuck out of the way. 

I cannot believe there are people who were born when I was, experienced the same enlightenment and savagery, and choose to go back to a time that never existed. There was no peace in the valley, bub, and there never will be. Sheltering our kids is not a way to prepare them for a real world. I have news for these parents, your kids are not staying in Florida. They grow up and get the fuck out of there to where the action is, the real, vibrant, open and productive places, the places that keep this broke nation afloat, like NYC, and they will be swallowed up, because mommy and daddy and the nanny state kept them in the dark.

This is why people panic when CNN puts Donald Trump on the air. “He’s going to destroy democracy! CNN is criminal for allowing people to listen to his bullshit!” Yeah, well, fuck you! Give me the bullshit. Give me the good and the bad and the ugly. There is more ugly coming and we need to grow the fuck up and face it. More Trump. Let’s see the warts and pus and inhuman disgust he brings. We’re big boys and girls capable of fact-checking his lunacy if we care, and if we don’t care, that is our prerogative. Hell, people still think he’s president or that he won an election he lost by millions of votes. Good. Perhaps if they weren’t so coddled, they would be more aware of what is ACTUALLY going on. Forfend! How dare we?

The history of this country is riddled with stories of five morally outraged dinks making a fuss and causing a shift in our construct. These are the same people damaging our kids today. The schools are already having a tough time keeping your pathetic offspring from mainlining smack, molesting their friends, or being shot by a Nazi. Let them teach.

The kids are alright, man.

Parents are fucked. 

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Aquarian Weekly
5/10/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
SCOTUS AT LOWEST EBB & DEVOURED BY SCANDAL 
Another Suspect in the Slow Murder of Democracy
 
Not since the dark days of Jim Crow has the United States Supreme Court been in such disarray from outright corruption to political hackery. Even after the controversial 2000 presidential election decision that anointed George W. Bush president at least half the nation believed the Court was a trusted and objective defender of democracy and its sacred laws. Now, only one in four Americans believe that – the lowest polling in its history. And it is likely that most of that twenty-five percent are Republicans, who cheered as the packed “conservative” Court stripped women’s reproductive rights in 2022 and handed a tyrannical blank check to states that have since enthusiastically enslaved women with the stroke of a pen.

Since the final few Republican flunkies filled the highest court in the land there have been a bevy of ridiculously partisan and radical decisions that fly in the face of civil rights, voting rights, much of it kowtowing showing to religious fanaticism over legal precedence and a gutting of protections for minorities. The Supreme Court is now a rogue anti-democratic collective that has lost the trust of the American people.  

Then came the Clarence Thomas saga.

The long-time embattled justice, who lied under oath about sexual abuse during his senate hearings in 1991, was finally outed as the fascist swine he is. Thomas is beholden to special interests from the right. Every one of his decisions have been bought-and-sold by a rich, sugar-daddy who whisks him to million-dollar locales, pays for his kid’s college tuition, and buys his mother homes. A Supreme Court Justice, who wishes to scuttle every protection for the electorate and openly mocks the system with quotes like this one from a 2001 speech that now holds deeper, darker meaning, “The job is not worth doing for what they pay” is now the poster-boy for this shit show. 

Thomas has been a mouthpiece for fascism for decades, held in check only because the Court, even conservatives, kept him from wrecking their reputations. But now the corruption is so blatantly shameless, he cannot even feign defending his actions. And won’t. His defiance is guilt enough. Thomas shrugs his shoulders at mounting evidence of his receiving luxury gifts, travel, and tuition payments from the GOP billionaire donor Harlan Crow without publicly disclosing them. Of course, he didn’t, because it proves he is in the tank for whatever Crow tells him to do. In the parlance of the law of business, this is called quid pro quo. Think of Crow as a mob boss and Thomas some cheap hood. Backscratching is only part of the fun for Thomas.

His right-wing activist wife, Virginia, is also tits-deep in scandal. The woman who called White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows to demand Donald Trump ignore the election results of 2020 and declare himself monarch, has been routinely pocketing a stipend of secret payments from leading deep-state fascist, Leonard Leo to spread anti-American propaganda. It turns out Thomas and his wife are paid lackeys carrying the water for unelected lunatics that own our Supreme Court. Hence, the plummeting trust of the American people in this slag heap Court.

Meanwhile, Chief Justice John Roberts has been on a month-long mission to restore the Court’s tarnished integrity that has long been sold out to Fundamentalists and Neo-Nazis that use this farcical doomed institution to ignore human rights for political gain. And to what gain is anyone’s guess. As covered here for months, the dismantling of women’s reproductive rights has put the Republican Party in a deeper hole than it was after the chaotic goof-fest that was the Donald Trump presidency and his ensuing January 6 insurrection. And despite the party’s nominee to lead the 2024 presidential ticket being the same domestic terrorist, this rancid Supreme Court might be the GOP’s biggest political weakness. 

But make no mistake, Clarence Thomas is Harlen’s Crow’s whore – legs akimbo, moaning to the bidding of his benefactor. And now that the cat has scrambled out of Thomas’s fetid bag of tricks, the word is that Crow is not merely a Koch brother or even the wrinkled turd that owns discredited and embarrassed Fox News, he is the leading donor to Republican and conservative causes. He is numero uno. The top mob boss owning a radical fascist Supreme Court Judge, who openly challenges the Fourth Amendment as if a fart in the proverbial wind.

How does that sit with ya, patriots?

Meanwhile, a flummoxed Justice Roberts is trying to sell you dog crap by telling you it’s ice cream.

Here is what we know: the Supreme Court is currently the Republican Gestapo. It has no shame. American fundamental rights twist in their hands. These crazies can pretty much do what they want, or sorry, what Harlen Crow wants, or Donald Trump wants. And that is to defecate on your personal sovereignty, especially if you have a vagina. Their motto is Fuck You. That should be the new seal for SCOTUS. Fuck you. And also, Pay Me.

How did we get here?

This clusteruck has the fingerprints of two America villains, former Democratic Nevada Senator Harry Reid, and current Republican Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. Both were majority leaders when they fucked the entire Court. First Reid invoked the “nuclear option” in November 2013, when a Democratic majority eliminated the 60-vote rule for judicial nominations, sans the Supreme Court. But that was risky, and McConnell promised vengeance. Then ultra-conservative pustule, Justice Antonin Scalia croaked during the Barack Obama presidency. The GOP owned the senate and with over a year to go in his presidency disallowed a vote on his nomination to replace him, hoping against hope a game show host would win the 2016 election. Turned out to be a good bet for Republicans, bad for the USA. McConnell then used Reid’s “nuclear option” to lower the threshold for SCOTUS appointees to 51 senate votes and summarily rammed Judge Neil Gorsuch into the seat. Then in a reversal of ideology, which I guess is Hypocrisy 101, within months of Trump’s final term, with polls looking like he would be waxed by Joe Biden, McConnell guessed right again and rammed another Trump nominee onto the Court after progressive champion Ruth Bader Ginsburg stupidly didn’t retire earlier and died of a cancer she’d been fighting for years. Consequently, screwing the Court for decades. 

So, now there is this complete joke of a Supreme Court. Politically and financially in the employ of extremists. The tool of one party and special interests with a twenty-five percent approval rating and a stench reminiscent of the swamp in which it plies its evil trade.

Maybe we should storm that building. 

Oh, shit. The Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers are all in prison. 

Next time.

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Aquarian Weekly
5/3/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
FIGHT FOR THE EQUAL RIGHTS AMENDMENT
Republicans Continue Their War on Women They Will Lose
 
In yet another glaring assault in the Republican Party’s war on women, this week all Senate Republicans – aside from two GOP women, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, and Susan Collins of Maine – voted against a resolution to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment that has been before the U.S. Congress in one form other another since 1972. In the wake of the blatantly unconstitutional, politically manipulated Supreme Court striking down of constitutional protections for women’s reproductive rights last year, the ERA would serve as fulcrum against government oppression against women’s rights over their body. 

Ironically, the Fourteenth Amendment, the very one ignored by the Court and shouted for months from the rooftops in this space as a legal umbrella for said rights, was cited by Republicans as a reason for squashing the resolution. In a humorously sickening turn, GOP opponents argued that the amendment already protects women’s rights. Clearly, it does not, nor does the Fourth Amendment. Otherwise, fascist governments in places like Texas would not currently override women’s personal sovereignty. And so, there is no time in my sixty years on this planet when the ERA has been more vital, and it must now be ratified into our Constitution or our laws continuing to view women as less-than American citizens will stand.

The foundation of the Equal Rights Amendment is simple: “Invalidate many state and federal laws that discriminate against women; its central underlying principle is that sex should not determine the legal rights of men or women.” Just as no law shall discriminate against skin color, religious, cultural, or political belief, or financial station, all of which are currently protected against systemic autocracy. Except for women. This is a Civil Rights issue, which gets us back to “equality” and the Equal Rights Amendment. 

Republicans clearly don’t want women to be equal. They stacked the Supreme Court with anti-women, religious fanatics carrying the water for Republican fascists, then once elected to barely control the House of Representatives, Republicans voted unanimously to federally ban all women’s reproductive rights, and now their Senators work to stop a measure that would protect fifty-one percent of the citizenry against this crime. 

Lest we forget, in the same week Republican-controlled states continued to crank out Draconian laws to jail women seeking abortions or incarcerate those who aim to move across state lines to freed states in order to enact what should be their inalienable rights. In Florida, a proposed Republican candidate for president of the United States signed a six-week ban on women’s reproductive rights that all but eradicates them in Florida. 

Women are under siege, and although the goal of this space and all true Americans is to eradicate the Republican Party completely from our vox populi, failing this pipe dream, the ratification of the ERA is paramount.

In 1972, the arguments against the ERA were to keep women from serving in the military or from earning an equal wage to men, the latter of which is still true today. It was also an attempt to dehumanize the gay community and begin the decades long push to stop marriage equality. The latter thankfully failed. Now, in the wake of the Court’s Dobbs decision of 2022, its rejection is to make sure the government controls women’s organs. Pure and simple. Republicans voting against the amendment openly argued this point, saying that the ERA was a veiled attempt for Democrats to supersede the Court’s Dobbs ruling, which, of course, it would, because the Court ‘s ruling was/is unconstitutional. 

Proud fascist Jim Jordan, congressman from Ohio, told Politico after the vote, “Anything that would hurt the right to life and threaten the protections we have for unborn children is a concern.” This is tantamount to the argument for segrationists in the 1960s to disallow integration under the guise of disturbance of the peace and harmony of the South, so Blacks should choose safety from lynching and be happy to not be able to vote or eat at the same diner or sleep in the same hotel as whites. It is the same tired shit over and over again. No matter the argument against rights – remember, “If women vote, what’s next, horses?” – it is specious and always fails on its face.

Finally, in 2020 with Virginia’s vote, the ERA has been ratified by thirty-eight states, the required three-fourths needed to be approved. However, some of those states adopted it after a congressionally mandated deadline had passed, raising questions about the validity of those actions. Nevertheless, the procedural claptrap is for Congress to figure out. They do it all the time – to wage wars and raise the debt ceiling, they can do it for women. Instead, what is before us is one party strategically and systemically refusing to grant women equal rights to men. Period.

You would think at this point, Republicans would just relent on this nonsense, since it is looking more and more with every election since the Dobbs decision that Republicans are no longer a viable national party. Gerrymandering and the goober states are pretty much the only ways they even remain in the conversation. Pretty soon winning elections with any measure of the independent vote (and by the way a majority of Republican voters support women’s reproductive rights and voted that way in 2022) or pulling in Democrats, as Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan did, will be impossible. Sixty-five percent of the electorate want protections for women’s reproductive rights against government oppression. Getting this issue off the table will allow them to run on other policies, instead of being choked by this issue. They should jump at a chance to even do the practical thing. But they choose to keep shooting themselves in the political feet. It is pure madness.

Needless to say, the actions of Republicans have worked consistently against the rights of women – in the workplace, the military, the voting booths, and the womb. If you are a woman or support women, you can no longer support the party. The only way to continue to show Republicans they must give up their attacks on women is to keep serving up losses in elections. Force them to come to the table to return women to equal status or face electoral extinction. 

This is how it is done. 

Stomp out fascists or accept that our daughters, sisters, mothers, wives, and friends are second class citizens. 

Fight for the Equal Rights Amendment.

Or accept tyranny.

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Aquarian Weekly
4/12/23

Reality Check


James Campion


THE WISCONSIN STORY
Protection of Women’s Reproductive Rights & The Marginalization of the GOP

Another important and resounding win for women’s reproductive rights transpired this week in Wisconsin. The state supreme court flipped from a conservative to liberal majority after nearly sixty percent of its voters – many of them young, women, and independents – spoke at the ballot box refuting the civil rights abuse of American women with the advent of the Supreme Court’s unconstitutional, partisan decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and hand the sovereignty of women’s bodies over to government control. This disaster led to a draconian 1849 trigger law in Wisconsin to make abortion a crime that a conservative court would have codified if victorious. But the Republican war against women took another wounding this past Tuesday, as liberal judge Janet Protasiewicz defeated conservative Dan Kelly, and doing it in impressive fashion – outdistancing President Joe Biden’s numbers that barely handed him the state in his 2020 victory and cutting into his opponent Donald Trump’s vote-totals in more Republican-leaning counties.

Protasiewicz won by eleven-points. Do you know how much of a stomping that is in a battleground state? Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is touting his 2022 re-election victory of ten percent as if he is Genghis Khan and the reason he should run for president. And Florida is no longer a purple state. What happened in Wisconsin wasn’t merely an election but a loud, booming, resonant call to action. 

This should send shockwaves throughout the Republican Party, but it likely won’t, since they exist in a fantasy media bubble led by the recently indicted conman Trump and fringe lunatics in congress who believe they exist to enact religious vengeance. But it is real, and it is happening at a rate that may decide the fate of the party for a coming generation, one that is rejecting its fascist leanings and might well expunge it to the dustbin of history.

To wit: Since the Dobbs decision, there have been resounding victories to codify women’s reproductive rights in blue states like Vermont and California, as well as the crucial purple state or Michigan, or denying the criminalization of abortion in deep red states like Kansas, Kentucky, Montana. The 2022 midterms were poised to be a “red wave” due to inflation, low approval numbers for President Biden, and the historic nature of a first-term president’s party taking a beating, but dramatically shifted that narrative mostly due to the blowback to Dobbs. Many state legislatures flipped to Democrat, as governor’s races moved left. The general rejection of new Republicanism has taken its lumps, and it shows no sign of stopping, at least for this and maybe the next generation. Then, history shows, people are willing to live in a less free world, because this is what they know. This can never take place. 

There is a long road ahead in the fight for women’s civil rights, but so far it appears that the wind is blowing in the right direction.

While the survival of democracy and sensible gun restrictions were also concerns in the Wisconsin election, an overwhelming majority cited the 1849 law and the Dobbs decision as paramount to motivating turnout and eventual victory. This latest blow to fascism is important because it happened in a battleground state that will be crucial for deciding the next president of the United States. This became dire since Republicans showed their hand on how they will govern if given the national majority in 2025, when they unanimously voted in congress two days after taking power to strip women’s rights if given the chance. A chance they must never have. You think your rights are safe in your state? Not if Republicans take all three branches of government backed with a fixed and corrupt SCOTA. Wisconsin was an excellent sign that this is a less likely outcome.

That is if we don’t become complacent. Complacency is what led to women being legally relegated to second-class citizenry. The fight and these results are only beginning to rectify this horror. 

Since Dobbs, Republicans have taken historic beatings at the ballot box. Red state, blue state does not matter. Even a majority of Republicans don’t want the government to decide what happens inside the body of American tax-paying citizens, so there is a slow and steady siphoning off of votes for a party that is already hanging by a thread, having only taken less-than-majority wins for the presidency once in two decades, and losing ground in the senate. Only redistricting and the south is keeping the Republican Party relevant. And this must be the goal for anyone who wants to give women their sovereign rights back: Marginalize the GOP, as the defunct Whigs Party before them, and force them to realize they can no longer win on the national level if they do not relent on this issue.

In a recent article for The Cook Political Report titled “The Impact of Abortion on 2022 and Beyond,” Amy Walter cited a recent interview with Democratic pollster Anna Greenberg in which she said, “‘the gender gap with independents was huge” in 2022 not because these voters didn’t prioritize inflation but because “being scared about what was gonna happen to the country for the folks who voted Democratic mattered more than inflation.’” Greenberg went onto say, “I think the existential threat of Republicans to Democrats as it was presented in Dobbs drove turnout, drove voting Democratic, drove particularly independent women voting.”

Walter is correct in dissecting the framework of the Democratic argument for women’s reproductive rights as effectively making “the debate on abortion about ‘values,’ not the medical procedure itself.” The parsing of a Republican post 2022 mid-term election analysis found that “for many women, the issue was about much more than abortion. It was about how we [Republicans] view and respect women in America. This sentiment is deeply felt and highly nuanced.”

And the vote to reject fascism in the Wisconsin state supreme court this week was a major victory to that end. Legal and systemic protections for fifty-one percent of our American citizenry is all that should matter now. If Republicans want a voice in our democracy for lesser taxes and international intervention or isolationism or this latest populist fad, then they must give up on fascism. If not, they will be relegated to a regional party that appeals mainly the southern portion of the U.S. Without Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and now trending blue states like Georgia and Arizona, not to mention the slow shift in North Carolina and even Texas, then there is no national political party, only a sad, marginalized philosophical cult. As an independent, I do not want this, but it is up to Republicans now to decide to stand with fascism or relent, and get back to governing in a democracy, not as a theological gang like ISIS.

There is a long road ahead in the fight for women’s civil rights, but so far it appears that the wind is blowing in the right direction.

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Aquarian Weekly
3/22/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
“WOKE” – A STUDY IN DEFINITION

Recently, a woman who’d written an entire book on the concept of “Woke” was hawking her wares on some podcast. The host asked a simple question that one assumes a person having taken the time to pen a tome on one topic would be able to define it: “What does ‘Woke’ mean to you?” The author stammered through a weak aside before falling silent, looking as if she had lost her puppy. Of course, this is 2023, so she was summarily lambasted on social media. And she knew it was coming, remarking moments after her flummoxed response that it would likely “go viral.” But to be fair to scribes unfamiliar with their subjects, quite a few of us appear to know next to nothing about a term that has come to define the political and cultural divisions in America.

I’ll give it a shot. 

Since Republicans are woefully bereft in having anything approaching policy or ideology, the entire purpose of the party’s existence seems to now be about using “Woke” to attack societal progress, or what Brandon Tensley couched recently on cnn.com as “an imprecise term used to decry progressive action.” This strategy to stem the tide of cultural evolution worked out great for the Whigs. That was sarcastic. They went bye-bye like most movements based on stopping progress. Ask Southern Democrats or the Catholic Church. Still, “Woke” has become the #1 priority for the modern Republican Party, a term they abhor and often cite with the pejorative suffixes, Woke Mob, Woke Mania, and the neatly designed “Wokism.” Ascribing an “ism” to something brings Reality Check into the fray, as both a cultural/political movement and sheer linguistic fun. 

First off, “Woke” has been attached to things it has nothing to do with; for instance this past week when those Silicon Valley banks went belly up due to banking regulations being stripped by the former president, a Republican, GOP voices attempted to cover their asses by blaming the banks’ failures on being “Woke,” which I assume means that their kowtowing to diversity and cultural understanding of minorities distracted them from making money. Determining the implosion of financial institutions due to a misunderstood cultural phenomenon may seem odd to you, but, again, no policies or concrete ideology will get you here. 

It is also important to note that “Woke” is not liberal agenda per se, like taxing the rich, comprehending climate change, or government-funded social safety nets. Yet its most vehement opponent, who may well be the Republican nominee for president, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, has based his entire purpose for political existence on fighting it. Another “conservative” politician with nothing to offer society beyond suppressing free speech, demonizing gender and sexual diversity and other scary things to the imbecilic among us, DeSantis has made a good living propping up “Woke” as a cheaply cobbled enemy to which only he “has the balls to fight.” However, the origin of the term did not speak to political agenda but a very real response to the mistreatment of persons of color, specifically African Americans.

Insert racist reasoning for DeSantis’ opposition here if you like. I’m moving on. 

Since it is now in the dictionary, a book that the woman who wrote the fancy “Woke” book might be familiar with, we can start there. Merriam-Webster defines “Woke” as: “Aware of and actively attentive to important facts and issues (especially issues of racial and social justice).” More to the point, it is a term that recognizes marginalized communities, which is only half of the idea currently ascribed to it. The other half would be respecting those communities, which “Woke” does not address. Its cultural origins are derived directly from the Black community attempting to rise above the stereotypes perpetuated on them, to become aware of their plight, as must every societal minority – which, by the way represents everyone’s family history. It could not have less to do with other cultures, mainly the White race, which has now taken up a knee-jerk defense to “Woke” or the idea that anyone can rise to their “status.” So much so, it has fed to unfounded fears that their “culture” is being usurped by its very uttering. 

I have zero time to discuss white supremacy and systemic racism, which is essentially the entirety of American history in this space. If you wish to do so, I suggest expending more research energy than Ms. Woke Book did on her project.

But I digress… 

For our succinct purposes here, the term was first used in a 1962 New York Times op-ed by Black novelist, William Melvin Kelley titled “If You’re Woke, You Dig It.” You can’t read that piece today online without paying the publisher, but since I read it in a college journalism class in the early 1980s, I can tell you it is a revolutionary and revelatory depiction of how the Black community might define itself while faced with the absurdly ubiquitous levels of oppression and discrimination mentioned above.  But since most cultural movements after the nineteenth century begin with artforms other than that of the written word, it was singer-songwriter Erykah Badu’s 2008 song, “Master Teacher” and the empowering phrase “I stay woke” that did the trick. 

“Woke” has been attached to things it has nothing to do with

Similarly, I was reminded of “Woke” during my activism in support of Russian feminist group Pussy Riot, who you might remember were imprisoned for protesting Vladmir Putin’s oppression of women. It was then Badu lent her support to their cause by tweeting: “Truth requires no belief. Stay woke. Watch closely. #FreePussyRiot.” Two years later, Michael Brown’s murder at the hands of cops in Ferguson, Missouri triggered the phrase “Black Lives Matter” wherein “Woke” was used to express much-needed systemic change. And so, it became a police thing, and for those who think the police can do no wrong, a belief mostly held by Republicans, it became political. 

Of course, “Woke” has been used as a convenient get-out-of-dutch free card when personal fuck ups go painfully public, like when NFL quarterback Aaron Rodgers lied to the league about being vaccinated against Covid-19, was busted, and then blamed his travails on a “Woke mob.” This example having absolutely nothing to do with the term “Woke” has appeared in defense of fuck ups as much as the phrase, “Cancel Culture” perpetuated by the book-banning Right and safe-zoning Left of our political spectrum. 

It’s a semantic free-for-all out there, folks. 

In conclusion, the slow transfer of “Woke” to the ensuing “Me Too” movement, which crystalized the general fears of White people to the alienating of specifically White men being threatened by sexually abused women, was then applied to any form of diversity and inclusion efforts. But, most interestingly of all, this application of “Woke” was not by its proponents but its opponents. Of course, demonizing a term or a culture is as old as civilization itself, yet unlike the wicked labels of “Foreigner” or “Communist,” “Woke” is quasi-defined by both those who use it in protest and to silence protest.

In the very weird way that culture often creeps up on us, “Woke” has become yet another indefinable word like “love,” “music” or “god” that can never inarguably be applied to the very thing it supports or attacks.

I might even say you might be more “Woke” after reading this.

But that is not the correct use.

And you’re probably not anyway. 

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Aquarian Weekly
3/15/23

Reality Check

James Campion

THE REASON FOR FOX NEWS
Contemplating an Elixir for the Damned

Author’s note: As a rule, I do not comment on show-business cable new outlets, but once the song-and-dance elbows its way into national news, it becomes fodder for commentary here. Thus…

There was a time when Fox News offered an ideological slant on “the news” that differed from CNN, MSNBC, and network news organizations. Not sure when it went from conservative-leaning option to completely off the rails as a shameless propaganda machine, but it did. Specifically, over the past two years it has transformed into a right-wing bullhorn that serves one purpose, to placate the guilt of conspiracy theorists, domestic terrorists, bigots, and the generally frightened. Of course, not everyone who watches Fox News is a domestic terrorist or a bigot, mind you, but they are frightened, either by real or imagined bogeymen, and the network is absolutely their propulsion and forgiveness chamber. Riling up the audience and then using bizarre rationalization for anti-social behavior and general disdain for democracy, it has managed to survive burgeoning competition from even more demented outlets that popped up during the dark times of the Donald J. Trump presidency, which simmered the scum to the top of the boiling pot that is America.

I’ll explain with two key events that are currently ongoing at Fox News.

The first is a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit brought against the concern by Dominion Voting Systems. After Trump was roundly defeated in November of 2020, he did what he hinted at in 2016 during the Republican primaries, a general election he actually won, and the ramp-up to the 2020 presidential election, he claimed if he lost the system was rigged. The severe beating he took, something he does not believe can exist in the off-kilter world devised in his spoiled rich-kid head, broke him. He found enough anti-American voices and a clearly dementia-addled Rudy Giuliani to pitch the idea that not only was the entire election, run across fifty states – most of them Republican run – rigged by the opposing party, this sham was assisted by the voting machines. Many of these machines were owned by Dominion. They suddenly became the specific target of Trump and his sycophants’ fantasy show. The trouble is Dominion counts on integrity to exist as a business, and when it is not just called into question but accused of deliberately being involved in a bloodless coup d’é tat, it had to retaliate.

The suit has gone to trial and depositions from Fox News hosts, who perpetuated this nonsense, were released to the public in which all of its hosts, Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, Laura Ingram, and most importantly for the rest of his piece, Tucker Carlson admitted to outright lying to support Trump’s anti-humiliation defense mechanism. Tucker, the station’s leader in ratings, as did the others, knew the entire thing was a crazy kneejerk fallacy, yet continued to vehemently whip up the kind of frenzy that placates its audience that believed, as they were told for months, Trump would win, and as Trump kept assuring them, easily. This is despite Fox News and every other poll conducted for six months of the campaign predicting candidate and now President Joe Biden would win by a comfortable margin of four to six points. If anything, the final results defied these prognostications in Trump’s favor. But these are mathematical absolutes, which doesn’t jibe with fantasy. Fox News stuck with the latter and will likely pay a hefty price for it.

So, as everyone had known for some time, except Fox News on-air personalities that called it left-wing attacks, the entire operation was full of shit. Every one of the hosts told authorities they thought Trump was nuts and they were shocked and dismayed by the entire thing, including the ensuing January 6 insurrection on the Capitol that occurred when Trump and his allies called to Washington D.C. the worst element of the bigot-terrorist-frightened brigade. In the face of all of this historic lunacy, they continued to pitch election fraud that failed to emerge in dozens of investigations, lawsuits and recounts. They openly described in these depositions to repeatedly lying to their own audience for ratings, for money, for fame. That they weren’t a news organization at all, but an entertainment entity. Come on, the rabbit doesn’t live in the hat. It’s all for fun. And, by the way, I do not begrudge any of this. That’s showbiz, folks! It just proves the musings of my opening paragraph: Fox News merely exists as an elixir to coddle the deranged.

Then comes this week’s shenanigans by the aforementioned Tucker Carlson, aided by Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, who was forced to promise the darkest corners of his party he’d provide mayhem if he were to procure the votes to secure that position.

The mayhem began when McCarthy took hundreds of hours of footage of terrorists violently sacking the Capitol and handed over to Carlson for his dog-pony-show. The only possible reason for Carlson to then go on the air and manipulate the footage (pro-terrorist propaganda?) to dilute the crimes (overtly and on camera live) committed against the United States was to make those who felt shame and disgust by this, much of it echoed by lawmakers like McCarthy that day and for days afterwards, much needed cover. Until Carlson went to the airwaves this past week, there was only weird rationalizations for this horror show that left five police officers and two civilians dead, many present having been badly injured, and now hundreds arrested. But the idea that it never happened was never seriously broached. Now in the tradition of Holocaust deniers, flat-earth proponents, right-wing denials of climate change, and the sudden movement on the right to wipe out the moral outrage of this country’s systemic treatment of African Americans, the events of January 6 did not occur. So therefore, none of it was a crime. Thus, nobody should go to jail. If anything, it was a fine day ruined by left-wing extremists trying to turn everyone not agreeing with them into outlaws. It was rigged. Like the election. The election Tucker Carlson said was rigged, even though he knew it wasn’t, lied anyway, and then copped to lying under oath.

I cannot think, beyond the ratings and money angle (always a good angle, explaining the existence of reality shows), why Tucker Carlson would do such a thing if the agenda wasn’t condoning January 6. It makes no sense. Historically, he is now an accomplice-after-the-fact of one of the worst events in modern American history. Granted, this once moderate commentator, who got his start bloviating on liberal-leaning PBS and MSNBC and kick-started the career of much-hated by the right, Rachel Maddow, was given the task of taking over the prime Bill O’Reilly spot at Fox News and knew what he needed to do to keep and grow this audience. He needed to become an avatar for bigotry and anti-American rhetoric. For cash.

Funnily enough, there are ample clips all over YouTube of Carlson previously excoriating O’Reilly for the very thing he does routinely every evening for the same reason. Carlson, having admitted to lying for a living, is a cheap carnival barker. What he does is nothing more than a geek biting the head off a chicken for a sixpence. But in the social order of the day, he is accomplishing a key element, washing away the sins of the guilty with one fell swoop, like a Catholic priest. Go now and sin no more.

Fox News had never been a serious news organization. It was built by a notorious Republican operative to game the system. Its genesis was silly and continued down the silly path, like, to be frank, most things on cable television. But the Dominion defamation suit and this week’s January 6 revisionist history showcase underlines its existence now is to make those who watch it feel emboldened and not anti-American for questioning the nation’s right to vote, its promise of civil rights, and the rule of law. But ultimately, they are no different than the radicals they used to fear and mock from the 1960s. But as long as Fox News tells them it is okay to act like wild animals when elections don’t go your way, and that looting, assault and murder are perfectly fine, because, you know, it didn’t happen at all, then… whew… they’re not crazy terrorist-sponsoring bigots paralyzed by fear. Hell, they’re true Americans.

As one president once said without retribution, “Mission Accomplished.”

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Aquarian Weekly
3/8/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
A CASE FOR SECESSION
 
 
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong.
– H.L. Mencken
 
Back in 2005-ish, I made a serious attempt to secede my property from the state of New Jersey. It was an annoying process that had zero chance of succeeding. I wrote about this extensively then, probably published it in this space, but I think it is in my fourth book, Midnight for Cinderella. (Shameless plug) Anyway, it was a bitch, and as expected nothing came of it. (Well, words. Like to get words out of random hijinks) But this does not mean the idea is not intriguing or serviceable on a larger level. So, when I heard something about a National Divorce pushed by the great unwashed this past week and the congresswoman from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Green pitching this to the usual rodeo clowns on cable news I got excited.   

Now, not sure how old Ms. Greene is, but judging from her syntax and most of the drivel she passes as rhetoric, I am assuming she is an infant. However, she appears older. I am thinking that she was likely first figuring out that she was friendless dink in need of a hug as she gathered her political philosophies back when I was busy actually trying to secede from New Jersey. She is likely unaware of its pratfalls.

But let’s not throw the infant out with the bilge water.

Since the Dobbs decision, it is obvious that some states in this union do not deserve to be a part of things around here – this includes military protection provided by the federal government, and other aid taxpayers waste on goober states that would financially collapse in weeks without being propped up by solvent states like California, New York, New Jersey and maybe four others, tops. They are draining quality resources form the us while keeping the poor, Blacks, women and the LGBTQ community from voting, providing basic civil rights, and other important elements of the American construct. So, what is the point of them, really?

For instance, I read the other day that Tennessee’s Republican Governor Bill Lee signed legislation banning minors from receiving gender-affirming care and it is now illegal to perform in a drag show anywhere in the state. This is stupid. Clearly. But more importantly, it is also unconstitutional, like the Dobbs decision, which the Right-Wing cabal in the Supreme Court used to eradicate millions of women’s reproductive rights, blithely stomping on the Fourth and Fourteen Amendments. So, for those states that wish to imprison women’s wombs I say, good riddance.

Since the Dobbs decision, it is obvious that some states in this union do not deserve to be a part of things around here.

How grand would it be for Texas or that fascist sinkhole in Florida to secede from the union, so we can treat them like we do all foreign nations that practice pogroms on human rights – unless, of course, we need their oil (Saudi Arabia) and their cheap Walmart-esque products and iPhones. (China) But, really, why do we need Tennessee? Arkansas? Mississippi? What is the fucking point?

Come on, give it up, I used a French suffix on Walmart. That’s like putting an Armani suit on the Duck Dynasty guys.

Once the states secede, we begin the invasion with tactical air raids, which should secure the skies for the marines to sweep in and clean house. 

Sound like a plan, Marjorie?

Marjorie?

Okay, let’s review: No point on keeping states around that oppress the vote and use poor trans kids to feel like gypsies in the Third Reich. I say, let’s make it a one-week sign-up for these states to either shit or get off the pot. Leave the union or be part of America. If they choose the former, gut the local government, put in a puppet regime to return the rights to all those listed above and prevent any Republican fascists from running it again.

Who’s with me?

Marjorie?

Wait, can Greene read?

Never mind. I’ll just send her crude drawings of the U.S. Army rolling into Dallas and Orlando and ridding the festering boils from their seats of government and trying them as insurrectionists. Real ones. Not those lunch pail Trumpy sycophants that roamed the Capitol Halls on 1/6/21 with Confederate flags. I mean, that is small potatoes. They’re going to jail. I am talking old timey justice, like I heard recently Mark Levin brag about.

By the way, how long would it take that old fart Levin to whine like a baby when we smash down his door and tell him the piper has come for his checkbook? 

I’ve got a C-Note on five seconds.

We talk big in this country, but we don’t execute the BIG ideas. I am coming with one of those. Or at least MTG is coming with it, and it’s a fine way to rid the nation of fascism, which is on the rise and needs to be cleansed. Democracy in action. Forefathers’ redux. Bring back tar and feathering and riding the guilty out on a rail.

But we need them to secede first.

Get on that.

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Aquarian Weekly
3/1/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
RUSSIA’S INVASION OF UKRAINE ONE YEAR OUT
A Retrospective for the Hell of It
 
A year of pain, sorrow, faith, and unity.
– Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky this week.
     
It’s been one year since Russian “troops” rolled into Ukraine as a mighty force to crush the ragtag defenses of its neighbor on the flights of demented fancy conjured by its omnipotent ruler and despot Vladmir Putin. The claims out of the big bad Ruskies were that this baby was going to be short and painful for the “enemy” and quick and glorious for the home team. Showing might and righting historic wrongs, it was going to bring former glory back to the mother country, return land once heralded as part of a great and long-remembered empire, and show the world the invincible power of Putin and his charges that had only been a suggested concept by a blustery middle-aged mental midget.  

How’s that going?

Well, for one thing, this is now a year old. The shock and awe bullshit that we bought when the Iraq War, going into its twentieth year now, was sold by our government, was duly pitched to the Russian people and its blatantly overrated military. The geniuses in the George W. Bush Administration said we would be welcomed as liberators, and it will all be clean as the proverbial whistle and done in a few arduous months. This obviously did not occur. Remember “Mission Accomplished?” That disaster was so far-reaching it not only elected America’s first Black president, it went on so long another Republican one used it to mock Bush and completely transform the party from international police force mongers to its current home of bleating isolationists. That is some rancid journey.

War is the great reality check, for everyone. It teaches us the valuable lesson uttered time and again by that beautiful brute, Mike Tyson, who said, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” And the reality check goes both way, kiddos. Ukraine did not roll over as Putin, and let’s face it, the world expected. It fought. And won. And continues to fight and win and endure in the face of this aimless blunder. 

If history teaches us one thing, it is that invasion, a favorite of humans everywhere since the dawn of civilization – I’m reminded of the brilliant opening “Dawn of Man” scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 – a Space Odyssey, with the monkey men and the watering hole, the bone, and the smashing of a skull for dominance – needs to be over in a few days, weeks or maybe a month or two. Once things get into the six- month-to-one-year-anniversaries it tells you things went horribly wrong. Say what you want about these lunatics, but Julius Caesar, Genghis Kahn, Alexander the Great, Napoleon, even Hitler had it down. Putin, not so much. This was a grand fuck-up on the world stage and he is eating it right now.

But what about the Russian citizens? These poor people and their descendants have endured the hardships of war for centuries and are once again paying a terrible price for the musings of a madman. International sanctions have crippled the country. You could make the case that the war might be the only thing propping it up. The casualties have mounted far beyond the accepted rate by any society without the obligatory blowback, and the riots in the streets and the abandonment of duties by hundreds of enlightened Russian soldiers on the battlefield have underlined this. 

There is very little that has happened since the tanks cruised across the border that did not go sideways for Putin and it will continue to go sideways now that even more countries are backing Ukraine. More weapons are pouring in from the United States and elsewhere daily. They gain and lose ground in a weird two-step that costs them lives and treasure for no payoff. How is this supposed to end, if not badly?

Ukraine did not roll over as Putin, and let’s face it, the world expected.

Of course, we are no strangers to quagmires, Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan (also a fine Soviet screw-up) and the aforementioned Iraq. Shit, I was dubious a year ago when I wondered what might be the endgame had this ended well for Putin in a week, as he surmised? Governing a people who do not want to be governed is bad mojo. Terrorist plots, assassinations, insurrection; ask the British how the whole colonization of Ireland went? For that matter, their 18^th century shenanigans around here.

But enough about history, the doomed-to-repeat-it bromide is already in effect. It has not dawned yet, if at all, on Putin that he royally screwed up and he should cut his losses. He was offering his people the kind of rose-colored gas-bag routine this week that sinks republics. Cutting losses for people with penises is not an option. Doubling-down on bad ideas is how men roll. Especially powerful men with daddy issues who use the nations they lead as a half-assed form of therapy to prove in some violent way that their penis is bigger than the next guy’s. 

It all comes down to this, and for Putin, I assume he will have to be assassinated. That is the best bet, because then the next guy can just say it was his fault and save face. Blaming things on the last guy is also a big favorite among the penis-set. Although, there are plenty of us walking around with vaginas who are also dipshits. Not sure if that is so much male v female malady. Looks like simply being a bipedal mammal is the cause. 

At the very least this ugly year of the latest in a long line of pointless European conflicts has helped us better understand history and psychology. Of course, it has come at a cost. It has been an unmitigated horror show for Ukraine and its battered but unbowed people, who bravely fight on despite what was supposed to be an overwhelming beat-down. As a small guy with a modest penis who had to deal with his share of bullies from childhood to yesterday, I am inspired and buoyed by all this. And I am proud we are backing the right horse and that not one American has had to die for it, unlike previous embarrassing military clusterfucks. We spend enough tax money on our obsession with weapons, why not use them to take down the odd tyrant?

Nevertheless, onward we go. More misery and stupidity.

Mammal style. 

I’ll have more to say on this at the two-year anniversary. 

See ya there.   

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Aquarian Weekly
2/15/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
FIRST AMENDMENT CRISIS IN FLORIDA
Governor Ron DeSantis & Fascist Republicans Shit on Constitution
 
Republicans run Florida. They are now using that power to ban books in schools.

This is a real thing. I’ll write it again.

Republicans run Florida. They are now using that power to ban books in schools.

Let that sink in. It is important you do. 

There is no reason to ask why about this. Nothing that can be offered up as a “reason” or “excuse” for defecating on the First Amendment of the United States Constitution will suffice.

It is a crime perpetuated on the citizens and children of Florida by its government. 

And if you have a specious retort to this, please stop reading and go press your brown shirt.

For the rest of us, I am going to assume no matter your political leanings, anyone reading his right now cherishes the freedoms provided by the United States Constitution. That is why you are reading this right now. There are many who are fans of some its Articles over others, and its vital ensuing Amendments, but the general respect of the document is, or should be sacrosanct. 

I realize the irony of that statement in a post-Trump world where Republicans lose elections and declare victory for months and years afterwards, insurrections have and will happen, and the Fourth and Fourteenth amendments are out the window for women. 

But humor me.

I, for one, am a big fan of the First Amendment, which guarantees the government shall make “no law prohibiting the exercise of freedom of speech and expression.” That’s a biggie. I mean, is there even a functioning democratic republic without this? Of course, this applies to literature. Banning of books is a no-no. Although previous fascists have had their way in this arena but were struck down eventually, it is and has always been against the law; the law provided by the Founding Fathers and upheld with massive bloodshed. 

Florida doesn’t give a shit about any of that. 

Banning books is pretty much the poster child of fascism. It’s what the Nazis did first, before all the camps and invasions. Currently, however, the Florida government has chosen to arbitrarily ban books from its school systems. No matter their argument for this, which is stupid, racist and a shamelessly transparent showpiece to help its governor, Ron DeSantis gain the approval of Republicans, so he can run for president, it is unconstitutional.

So, what is being done about it?

Well, you could sue and hold it up in court until it gets all the way to the Supreme Court, but that is now packed with fascists, who have stripped 51-percent of the populace of their reproductive rights and handed the decision over the same type of governments. So, where do you think that is going?

The most recent legislation in question is House Bill 1467, enacted last July, which mandates that books in Florida’s public schools be free of “pornography” and suited to “student needs,” as determined by a librarian or school media specialist. 

Banning books is pretty much the poster child of fascism.

Short aside: the SCOTUS – a previously functioning one, not the current fascist one – has already determined that state-sanctioned definitions of “pornography” is in not constitutional. Who decides what is porn? I can make a very good case that the rape, mass orgy fuck-fest and seduction addled free-for-all in the Bible is pornography. It really is inarguable. Have you read that thing? I did. Three times. Oof.

Okay, now back to these “specialists,” who are making these “decisions” on what is acceptable free speech. Doubtless they are white, fascist, Republican religious nutcases. The “retraining guidelines,” which only became available in January, according to Andrew Spar, the president of the Florida Education Association, are ambiguous. The chief academic officer (whatever the fuck that is) of Duval County (wherever the fuck that is), took a stab at it: “Books not on the district-approved list or not approved by a certificated media specialist need to be covered or stored and paused for student use.” 

I ask: What in the holy name of bicycling Christ does ANY of that mean? 

I’ll take my own stab at it: Right-wing lunatic or lunatics – they are unclear of the number or actual unelected shadow-people – who will go by a chosen name of “Media Specialist” (to make it sound official and not criminal), a will enact a “district-approved” – more fascist right-wing nomenclature – “list” of what books meet standards. (Again, who decides the “standards?” 

If I had written this about 1930s Germany, you’d shake your head in disgust and thank whatever deity you subscribe to that WWII eradicated this bullshit. But it is going on in Florida. Right now. In the United States of America.

To put a turd cherry on top of this pile of legal feces (Yes, I am riding the defecation metaphor hard here, wouldn’t you?): Not complying with this results in what one superintendent quoted in a recent AP piece will be “a felony of the third degree.” This is due to a pre-existing law prohibiting the distribution of pornography to minors.

Like, the Bible?

How does this happen? Well, how does any fascism begin? Fear. For the Germans, fear of Jews and Communists. For Florida, fear of African Americans and progressives.

What DeSantis does is hide this racism in a cloud of rhetoric about “Woke Mobs” and “Critical Race Theory.” Or the more ominous-sounding CRT, which is all the rage on brainwashing right-wing media. We don’t have enough time to cover the college-level merits of “CRT” (never taught to public grade-school kids) here, but like the Deep State and Trump having won the 2020 election, it is a fantasy concocted to scare the great unwashed into voting for half-assed idiots who shout during State of the Union speeches and knuckle-drag their way through culture wars to hide their horrific governing agenda, which is usually nothing with a side of nothing.

To wit: DeSantis previously introduced his fancy “Don’t Say Gay” bill, which disallows the discussion of sexual orientation and gender identity through third grade, and another bill, known as the Stop Woke Act, which prohibits teaching that someone “must feel guilt, anguish, or other forms of psychological distress” on account of their race or sex.

In his charmingly monosyllabic way, the governor and his fascist minions believe that teaching the history of this country – the true history, which is what education should be – might “offend” people, mostly white people. The coverage of slavery, Jim Crow, systemic racism, hurts white people’s feelings. But I ask genuinely, why? Is this guilt over admitting that racism still exists and they wish to quell this? Are they afraid a new generation might finally cop to this? I’m white. I do not feel or have never felt learning about these things makes me guilty, because I am not. Reminds me of bigots claiming gay marriage threatens their marriage.  Makes you think they doth protest too much, no?

Anyway, none of this matters – because even if they were “scared” or “sad” or whatever about Black History, this is still not good enough to ban books. Let me repeat: There is no reason good enough to supersede the First Amendment. This all sounds to me like cancel culture, anyway. It is no different than the left’s attack on Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, the most effective and influential book attacking racism ever published only two decades the goddamn Civil War for having the N-word in it. There is no difference. It is criminal.

By the way, Mark Twain rules!

But Florida has cleared the shelves and boxed up the offending literature just the same. All of this hinges on the whims and psychosis of a few people; right-wing, republican people, who play footsies with the Constitution as if it is a mere suggestion.

To be fair, I will let Ron DeSantis, who by the way is Italian, a race that was not considered “white” until halfway through the last century and for most MAGA crazies he is courting with this nonsense, still are not considered so, have the final word.  

“In Florida, our parents have every right to be involved in their child’s education. We are not going to let politicians deny parents the right to know what is being taught in our schools. I’m proud to sign this legislation that ensures curriculum transparency.”

He is a politician currently denying parents and their children’s rights.

Translation: Fuck the constitution. I run things. My way or the highway.

Or fascism. 

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Aquarian Weekly
1/18/23
 
Reality Check
 

James Campion
 
 
REPUBLICAN OBSESSION: FEDERAL ABORTION BAN
Women’s Reproductive Rights Already Under Siege by 118^th Congress 
 
 
Within 72 hours of taking a slight majority in the House of Representatives we get a unanimous (222) Republican vote on two bills to ban abortion nationally, building on the unconstitutional Supreme Court ruling that tossed a 50-year federal law protecting women’s reproductive rights provided by the U.S. Constitution’s Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments and sent it to the states. EVERY Republican voted for this, even moderates from blue states that barely gave the fascists the gavel after a surprisingly lackluster midterm showing due to the backlash of the SCOTUS overreach. These fuckers couldn’t agree on a Speaker of the House for fifteen rounds of voting over the course of a week, the first time it took that long in 150 years. But with their seats barely warm, they came together to hammer home what they are really about: Curving inflation? Nope. Curtailing crime? Na. Fiscal responsibly? Pish-posh. Border security? Not a wit. Enslaving 52-percent of the populace, this is their aim.

Although almost every pundit and insider paying attention to such things realized that beyond the Republican insurrection of 2021 fueled by a year of anti-democratic rhetoric, the striking down of Roe v Wade last summer led to a Democratic uprising to not only stem the tide of a purported Red Wave (and to be fair, considering the economy and two-hundred-plus years of history about the opposition party doing well in the first midterm of a president, it was expected) the Dems kept the Senate and nearly the House. Again, what saved the GOP were Republicans in states that have protected abortion laws – New York, New Jersey, and California. Voters stupidly thought their rights were safe, so why not vote Republican? However, in states where there are Draconian laws jailing doctors and rounding up rape victims or women with miscarriages, the Republicans shit the bed. These blue-state voters were wrong. Surprise! Republicans are pushing for a federal ban on abortion that will put you in the same boat as Alabama or Texas.

At least those who tried to downplay this civil rights disaster in a shameless attempt to get elected can now be outed. We know where they REALLY stand. ALL of them. There are no moderates in a party now completely ruled by fascists and religious fanaticism. There is ZERO reason to ever vote Republicans if you believe in habeas corpus, the right to privacy, and certainly keeping the fucking government off our bodies. And this is for all those men who don’t give two shits what women they knock up, it’s their problem now – first it will be women, but believe me, they will stop at nothing. These lunatics who preach that guns are sacrosanct, but women’s uteruses are open season? They will come for your cocks next, bubba.

Republicans want to do one thing: Reduce women to baby machines under the threat of law.

I had a progressive friend recently rightly point out that without the senate or the presidency these kinds of showcase bills are merely to toss red meat at the great unwashed. But I reminded him as I do all the centrists, progressives, independents, and general believers in the concept of freedom, we are only two years away from a very difficult map for Dems in the senate and a presidential election. All this changes if Republicans gain power. They will, if this week is any indication, take all of three days before they will ban all abortion everywhere. Just like the justices who told everyone Roe v Wade was “settled law,” then got appointed and tossed it without a second thought. These bills prove without a doubt that they will ban abortion nationally in 2025 if elected. And they aren’t even being coy about it anymore. First time in power since 2018 and BAM! Two bills that would be law if there was a Republican senate and a Republican in the White House. 

And this warning goes for the final few who identity as Republicans but do not want women to be arrested for deciding what to do with their healthcare. Because this week, with these votes, Republicans have shown their hand. Check that. They have shouted from the rooftops, that this is a siege on women’s rights, and it will not stop until all fifty states are under their thumb.

These votes prove what I have been telling you all along, so this is not hyperbole from a guy who practices it routinely here. This is reality and, as I pointed out last week, the sooner we come to grips with it, the better. There is nothing left to do by vote for the only party protecting women to have enough Democratic representatives, senators, and a president to cement into law protections from government rule over women. And this goes for Democrats running from now on. This must be the lead to any discussion, debate, campaign ad, whatever. Take rights back. Protect the citizenry from tyranny.

This is what voting for Republicans gets you. All that talk about the economy and cops and all the other bullshit is just that. Republicans want to do one thing: Reduce women to baby machines under the threat of law. And they will run the entire thing from Washington D.C.

This past week they voted for this reality TWICE. 

And they are not going to stop.

WE have to stop them.

NEVER SURRENDER.

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