Janet? Come on in-the water’s great here!
Ostara 3.20.25 by Dishkitty
Equinox Read on Substack
Happy Ostara and Spring Equinox! It started with snow this morning, which was a bummer, but you know – in like a lion and all that. I’m ready for the lamb!
Build your path with patience. Small steps are progress. XOXO
Share this comic with your favorite pagan.
| March 20, 1815 Switzerland was declared neutral by the great powers of Europe at the Vienna Congress following the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte. The confederation of 22 cantons (member states) had its current borders established with its neighbors France, Germany, Austria and Italy. Switzerland’s history |
| March 20, 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe’s influential novel about slavery, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly, was first published in book form by J.P. Jewett of Boston. The text had previously been serialized in the anti-slavery newspaper, the National Era. 10,000 copies were sold in the first week, 300,000 within the first year. The many different editions published in Europe sold an aggregate of one million copies in the first year. It was the second best-selling book of the 19th century after the Bible. Uncle Tom’s Cabin was soon published in dozens of languages.  How Harriet Beecher Stowe was Inspired to Write Uncle Tom’s Cabin |
| March 20, 1983 In Australia 150,000 (1% of population) demonstrated in anti-nuclear rallies.  Sydney anti-uranium protest. April 7, 1979 Australia’s anti-nuclear movement: a short history |
| March 20, 1998 Despite the efforts of thousands of anti-nuclear demonstrators, a train hauling 60 tons of nuclear waste arrived in the north German town of Ahaus from Walheim in the south. Twice the train was stopped by protestors chained to the tracks; 300 were arrested with police using water cannon in response to rocks and sticks being thrown at them. The size of the security deployment, outnumbering the protestors ten to one, necessitated the postponing of ten days of football (soccer) matches. A similar shipment the previous year provoked several days of rioting. |
| March 20, 2010 5:32 PM GMT The first day of spring (the vernal equinox) is the day for celebrating NoRuz [no-rooz], the Persian New Year. More on NoRuz and other Persian celebrations |
| March 20, 2011 The nuclear reactor crisis created in the wake of the earthquake and tsunami on the northeast coast of Japan began to spread health risks to the surrounding area. Elevated levels of radiation were found in spinach and milk in the nearby prefectures (counties). As a result of pumping seawater to keep the reactors cool after loss of electricity and damage wiped out all the cooling systems, radiation was found in the ocean waters. Fukushima today |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march20
The sun will shine in my back door someday/ The sun will shine in my back door someday/ March winds will blow all my troubles away by Worriedman
“I Know You Rider”.- Traditional Read on Substack
It was a blustery weekend. “ Blustery” was a word I learned in the fourth grade from our teacher, Mrs Wigel. She spent the first period reading to the class every morning. She read us “Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day “ which was a Disney product and not the original book by AA Milne . I was never much of a Winnie the Pooh fan. I did learn “blustery” though and use it every time the situation permits.
It was blustery today up on the Hill with the Mule in his Minions. They were pretty muddy!
Crocus ! Crocus ! Crocus !
German Iris. These poor things don’t know what time of year it is – they are reblooming like nobody’s business.
Amaryllis!
That’s all I got room for – thanks for dropping by! (snip)
Enjoy your St. Pat’s, in your own fashion! ☘
| March 17, 1966 Cesar Chavez and the National Farm Workers Association left Delano for Sacramento, the capital of California, a 340-mile march which would take three weeks. They were calling public attention to the plight of farm workers and for their struggle for the right to organize a union.  |
| March 17, 1968 In London’s Trafalgar Square, at the largest anti-Vietnam War protest in Britain to date, 25,000 people marched. They were demonstrating against American action in Vietnam and British support for the United States policy. Some then attempted to storm the U.S. Embassy, resulting in 200 arrests and fifty taken to hospital, nearly half police officers.  Actress Vanessa Redgrave was allowed to enter the embassy to deliver a protest Read more and watch footage of the demo |
| March 17, 1978 The oil supertanker Amoco Cadiz ran aground and, in the worst oil spill ever, lost its entire cargo of 1,619,048 barrels (223,000 tons).A slick 18 miles wide and 80 miles long polluted approximately 200 miles of France’s Brittany coastline.  The Amoco Cadiz disaster was the first marine environmental catastrophe to be covered by the world’s media in real time.  one of the victims Read more |
| March 17, 2003 President George W. Bush warned U.N. weapons inspectors to leave the Iraq within 48 hours. They were in country searching for weapons of mass destruction (WMD), conducting 900 inspections at 500 locations in four months.Bush had given Saddam Hussein the same amount of time to step down from power or suffer the consequences of the planned invasion. Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, and Mohamed El Baradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and the inspectors had found no WMDs, or any evidence of a renewed Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Despite increasing cooperation from Iraqi authorities relenting to international pressure, the inspectors were unable to complete their work due to the American threat of war.  U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq before they were forced to leave by President George W. Bush Hans Blix’s report to the UN Security Council just ten days earlier |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march17
| March 13, 1830 The term “rat,” referring to a worker who betrays the interests of fellow workers, first appeared in print. The New York Daily Sentinel reported on replacement workers who had agreed to work for two-thirds of the going rate. “ . . . [many printers are out of work, others are being paid about 2/3 the regular pay; they should join in cooperative associations, ‘as we have done’] “ [While] the master printers [fill] their offices with boys and two-thirds men, alias ‘rats,’ it will be difficult to find a remedy.” |
| March 13, 1864 The first contingent of 14,030 Navajo reached Fort Sumner, New Mexico. Men, women and children had been forced to march almost 400 miles from northeastern Arizona and northwestern New Mexico to Bosque Redondo, a desolate tract on the Pecos River in eastern New Mexico. Traveling in harsh winter conditions for almost two months, about 200 Navajo died of cold and starvation along the way. More died after they arrived at the barren reservation. The forced march, led by Kit Carson, an Indian agent and military leader in both the Mexican and Civil Wars, became known by the Navajos as the “Long Walk.”  A grueling 400-mile march to imprisonment in a sterile land. More on The Long Walk |
March 13, 1945 Pax Christi, an international Catholic peace organization, was founded in France. From their website: “Pax Christi is a ground up organization – it began with a few committed people who spoke out, prayed and worked for reconciliation at the end of the second world war, and is now active in more than 60 countries and five continents, with more than 60,000 members worldwide.”Pax Christi history  |
| March 13, 1968 Clouds of nerve gas drifted outside the Army’s Dugway Proving Grounds in Utah, poisoning 6,400 sheep in nearby Skull Valley.  Sign near Dugway: Warning Hazardous Area: This area may contain Chemical, Biological and Radiological contaminated material and explosives . . . Read more about Dugway – the home of Amerian WMD |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march13
Simply very bad news. Precisely what Project 2025/Agenda 47/Republican National Platform said they want to do. I’m sorry; I don’t like to bring bad news. But people need to prepare. This is written in editorial/opinion style, but facts are within and there are citations. For people like us who need time to prepare for austerity, it’s news we ought to read.
Also, there are Senator names included for who we should write to regarding this bill. That’s our last chance. Shutdown is on Republicans, not Democrats, no matter how they try to deflect. We need to tell the Dem senators to speak what’s in this bill, every chance they get, and to refuse to vote in favor, pointing at Republicans the entire time.
There are parts in the article complaining about Democrats and their choices, etc., et. m. Read it if you want (you’ll have to click through for it,) but it won’t help anyone to read more complaining about Democrats. We the people need to energize Dem. Senators to speak out, and to vote no. Especially the speak out portion; Sen. Mark Kelly does that especially well, and is among those the author of this piece feels is wavering. I intend to start first thing in the morning, and I hope all of us will devote some time to this. It’s vital.
The House’s continuing resolution would effectively hand over spending decisions to Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
by David Dayen March 11, 2025
Snippets:
Without the luxury of Republicans falling apart, Democrats in the Senate need to decide whether to prevent a dangerous and harmful budget that shrinks the power of Congress in the government. Since operating on principle goes against their “adults in the room” mindset, they are wavering on what to do. But it should be an open-and-shut case.
A normal continuing resolution funds the government at the same level as the previous budget. This bill does not. It cuts non-defense discretionary spending by $13 billion below last year’s level, while increasing military spending by $6 billion. It zeroes out funding for programs that fund homeless shelters and prevent child abuse. It cuts health care funding for clinics and hospitals, emergency preparedness for communities, clean water projects and tribal assistance. Meanwhile, it adds money for mass deportations, just as Immigrations and Customs Enforcement has illegally detained a green card holder for his political beliefs.
Most of the budget cuts are achieved by removing earmarks, which members of Congress put in to direct projects. But usually when earmarks are removed, the money goes back to the agency to decide how to distribute it. This maneuver cuts the earmarks and the money.
The House Republican bill also fails to fix a carryover of a $20 billion rescission to IRS money from the Inflation Reduction Act, effectively doubling that cut. This was kind of pre-ordained when Democrats punted on this in a prior continuing resolution last December, but it still means that practically all of the IRA’s funding for greater enforcement of tax collection is now gone.
The bill not only adds $6 billion to the Department of Defense’s enormous budget, but adds $8 billion in “transfer authority” that allows the agency to shift spending where they deem important, a flexibility no other agency gets.
While Republicans tout a $6 billion increase in veterans health care in the bill, they neglect to mention the removal of a $23 billion appropriation to the Toxic Exposure Fund to implement the PACT Act, which cares for veterans exposed to burn pits and other cancer-causing chemicals. While there’s an extra $2.2 billion for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s disaster relief fund, there’s no additional money to support the rebuilding in southern California after the January wildfires.
But most important, the bill grants an open invitation to Trump and Elon Musk to continue to ignore Congress and toss out disfavored spending. Vice President JD Vance, while selling the deal to House Republicans, stated outright that “Trump would continue cutting federal funding with his Department of Government Efficiency initiative and pursue impoundment — that is, holding back money appropriated by Congress.” This has been reiterated by others in the Trump administration.
In fact, the House Republican bill gives the president more leeway to move money around. It appropriates money for things that Musk has eliminated, meaning that money can operate as a floating slush fund for Trump’s priorities, as long as the courts don’t roll back the illegal impoundments.
… The Trump administration is saying that they will sign a bill appropriating specific funding, and then go about cutting funding anyway. If you’re a member of Congress, you’re being told that your work product doesn’t matter, that the constitutional power of the purse doesn’t matter, and that there’s no guarantee that anything you pass will actually reach the people you serve.
I can see why Republicans would take this deal: they want budget cuts but know they don’t have the votes for them, so they’re plenty happy to outsource that to the president, even if it turns Congress into a separate and unequal branch of government. But why would Democrats willingly submit to a fake budget on paper that can be so easily circumvented? As Rep. Greg Casar (D-TX), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said on X, “The Republican spending plan will supercharge Musk’s theft from working people to pay for billionaire tax cuts. Senate Democrats must stop it.”
…
So far, only Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) has committed to voting yes. But as Josh Marshall has documented at Talking Points Memo, a number of Senate Democrats have stated no position on the bill, leaving their options open. In general, senators have been hedging their bets until forced to make a decision. That time has come.
Credible sources indicate that the most likely Democrats to offer up the remaining seven votes to avoid a shutdown are Mark Kelly (D-AZ), Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), Michael Bennet (D-CO), John Hickenlooper (D-CO), Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Gary Peters (D-MI), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Maggie Hassan (D-NH), and Mark Warner (D-VA).
March 11, 1988 Ten days of protest and direct action ensued demanding an end to nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site. The site, larger than the state of Rhode Island, is an outdoor laboratory and national experimental center for testing nuclear weapons. The actions resulted in over 2,200 arrests, the largest number of arrests in U.S. history for a political protest outside Washington, D.C. |
| March 11, 2011 More than 85,000 Wisconsin citizens rallied outside the Capitol in Madison to welcome the return to the state of fourteen Democratic state senators. Known as the Wisconsin 14, they had left the state to deny the senate a quorum, thus delaying passage of legislation which took away public employees right to collectively bargain and restricting other rights of union members. State Senate Minority Leader Mark Miller remarked about the gathering, “This is what democracy looks like!”  The Wisconsin 14 |
https://www.peacebuttons.info/E-News/peacehistorymarch.htm#march11
This is yesterday’s newsletter, but I just got to it, so here it is:
Extra! Extra! 3/9 👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼 by Jessica Craven
Read on Substack
Hey, all, and happy Sunday!
Hope you’re enjoying your weekend. To give you a bit more enjoyment, here’s all the good news I could find from the week that just ended. I’m certain there was more, but the below is a good sampling. As awful as things are right now—and they are awful—there’s much good happening as well.
Enjoy this list, read it a few times, and share it with friends. It is not by staring relentlessly at what’s wrong that we will prevail, but in lifting up what’s working and celebrating it. Really!
Let’s do that. Then tomorrow we’ll get back to work making new victories.
Here’s a great pep talk on the power of our growing movement, courtesy of Framelab!
Paul Tazewell became the first Black man to win an Oscar for best costume design, and Zoe Saldaña became the first American of Dominican origin to win an Oscar at all.
A petrol giant in Norway has announced a ban on fuel sales to all US forces following Trump’s treatment of President Zelensky at the White House.
MeidasTouch, an independent news network that is consistently critical of Trump, surpassed Joe Rogan’s podcast to take the top podcast ranking.
Mike Johnson has instructed his members to stop having Town Halls because of their constituents’ anger.
1,400 people showed up to Indivisible Northern NV’s protest in front of their Republican Congressman Mark Amodei’s office on Saturday. WOW!
Despite political headwinds for the U.S. offshore wind industry, global installations are expected to rebound to a record-high 19 GW this year.
Starbucks workers at the S. Dale Mabry & Neptune location in Tampa, FL just won their election to become the 550th union Starbucks store in the US!
The Trump administration has rescinded its decision to cut off legal aid for unaccompanied immigrant children. You sent letters about that! Bravo!
After a public outcry, the Alabama Department of Economic and Community Affairs has resumed the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, lowering energy bills for thousands of Alabamans.
The Supreme Court lifted its hold on a lower court order compelling the Trump administration to resume nearly $2 billion in foreign aid funding from USAID. HUGE!
Senate Dems all voted against a bad anti-trans bill.
Over the weekend after Trump and Vance’s meeting with Zelensky in the Oval Office supporters like you donated $2,597,908 to UNITED24, the Ukrainian government’s official fundraising website. Wonderful!
Los Angeles County sued Southern California Edison over its role in the devastating Eaton fire.
According to one of the organizers, over 200K people watched the “State of the People” livestream that was offered as counterprogramming to Trump’s SOTU.
In Minnesota, House Republicans brought House File 12 to the Floor, legislation that would prohibit trans and non-gender conforming youth from participating in girls’ sports in Minnesota schools and subject all women and girls to inappropriate scrutiny about their bodies. Democrats defeated it!
Rep. Al Green, was ushered out of Trump’s address to Congress by security guards after raising his voice about Medicaid. THAT is resistance!
Jackie and Shadow, two famous bald eagles, finally hatched two chicks after years of trying to become parents.
Campaign Legal Center filed a new lawsuit challenging the creation of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE). They claimed Elon Musk’s and DOGE’s actions are unconstitutional.
The African Development Foundation is putting up a fight and denying DOGE and Pete Marocco — the State Dept official dismantling USAID — access to their building.
Alabama Governor Kay Ivey just commuted the death sentence of Robin Dion “Rocky” Meyers.
Electric vehicles made up 64% of all new cars sold in Denmark in January — up from 35% last year.
The stock market’s negative reaction to Trump’s tariffs caused him to withdraw them.
More than 34,000 Vermonters attended Rep Rebecca Balint’s town hall the night of the SOTU —she was joined by Sen Bernie Sanders and Peter Welch. Wow! (You can view a recording on Facebook.)
Utility-scale clean energy installations soared to 49 GW in the U.S. last year, with Republican states seeing the fastest growth.
The U.S. built a record 10.9 GW of utility-scale battery capacity in 2024, mostly in California and Texas, and that figure could surge to 18 GW this year.
More states are adopting mandates for reporting lost or stolen guns.
A federal judge extended a nationwide preliminary injunction on Trump’s executive order to end federal funding for gender-affirming healthcare for trans youth.
Jail voting soared in Colorado in November of 2024—this after the state mandated polling places in County jails.
The White House pulled the expected signing of the executive order to dismantle the Department of Education
A federal judge ruled that the head of the Office of the Special Counsel, who is responsible for protecting whistleblowers, must be able to continue in his role through the duration of his term.
With time running short to avoid a shutdown at the end of next week, Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson are urging Republicans to accept a stopgap bill that would keep federal dollars flowing at current levels through the end of the fiscal year on September 30.
Alabama’s parole rate more than doubled in 2024. The board released 20 percent of prisoners last year compared to just eight percent in 2023. One lawmaker credited the boost to increased scrutiny from journalists.
A trans woman who was fired from McDonald’s after being harassed won a $900,000 lawsuit against the company that runs the restaurant.
A crowd hundreds strong gathered near the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association campus in Boulder on Monday to protest cuts made to the agency last week as part of the Trump administration’s effort to downsize the federal government.
The U.S. Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) reinstated about 5,600 probationary USDA employees that had been terminated by the Trump administration.
Wisconsin is joining a multistate lawsuit against the Trump admin over the mass firings of federal workers.
Tesla shares tumbled 5.6% in trading Thursday and are now down 45% from their December peak. Just since Trump took office and Musk began wielding power they have lost 38% of their overall value.
Target’s online traffic dropped during The People’s Union USA Economic Blackout on Feb. 28, according to data from website analytics platform Similarweb. Costco’s went up.
Across the country on Friday—in at least thirty localities—protests were held in support of science.
U.S. government employees who have been fired in the Trump administration’s purge of recently hired workers are responding with class action-style complaints.
“Hamilton” is canceling plans to perform next year at the Kennedy Center, citing President Trump’s moves to impose his values on the venue. “We’re not going to be a part of it while it is the Trump Kennedy Center,” said its creator, Lin-Manuel Miranda. Couldn’t love him more.
Virginia lawmakers unanimously passed a bill to educate the public about common menstrual disorders like endometriosis and PCOS.
Educators in New York City are embracing rather than restricting discussions of race in schools. Leaders have said they’ll do so whether the Trump administration approves or not.
This year’s count of endangered Mexican gray wolves shows their recovery is inching forward.
Parents in Britain will be granted a right to bereavement leave after suffering a miscarriage as part of Labour’s workers’ rights reforms.
Black churches across the country were awarded more than $8 million in grants by The National Trust for Historic Preservation, part of an effort to preserve buildings that played significant roles in Black history.
Researchers have created an eco-friendly alternative to plastic Mardis Gras necklaces.
Stanford University chemists have developed a practical, low-cost way to permanently remove atmospheric carbon dioxide, the main driver of global warming and climate change, using rocks.
A federal judge ordered the reinstatement of Democratic NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, whom Trump fired to eliminate the board’s quorum.
Almost everything Trump and Musk are doing is wildly unpopular with Americans.
Dicks Sporting Goods doubled down on its commitment to DEI.
CBS has filed a motion to dismiss Trump’s $20 billion lawsuit over former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 60 Minutes interview last year, calling the suit an “affront to the First Amendment without basis in law or fact.”
Ontario will charge 25% more for electricity shipped to 1.5 million Americans starting Monday in response to Trump’s tariffs, Premier Doug Ford said Thursday.
In Las Vegas, the Culinary and Bartenders Unions have reached an agreement with Fontainebleau Las Vegas, and for the first time in the 90-year history of the strip every establishment is totally unionized.
Bernie Sanders’ ‘Fighting Oligarchy’ campaign is continuing to draw massive crowds in red districts across the US.
Production workers at Walt Disney Animation Studios officially have a first union contract.
Ukraine supporters unfurled the world’s largest 🇺🇦 flag on the White House ellipse this weekend.
In Oklahoma, the Senate Education Appropriations subcommittee nixed a $3 million request by the state Education agency to place Bibles in classrooms.
In Montana, powerful speeches by the state’s two transgender lawmakers helped flip 29 Republican lawmakers’ votes and kill two anti-trans bills.
Thanks to the ballot measure passed in the state in November, Arizona’s 15-week abortion ban has been permanently blocked!
A Federal judge in Rhode Island entered a preliminary injunction that indefinitely blocks Trump’s freeze on federal grants and loans, saying the Trump Administration “put itself above Congress.” This lawsuit was brought by Democratic state Attorneys General, led by New York AG Letitia James.
Warning, this is slightly risque. But if you saw the weird AI-generated video about “Trump Gaza” that Trump reposted last week, you have to see this. (Full disclosure; I have not watched it. No time for videos today unless it’s one of you people here. Also, the scene shown has ruined my lunch. -A)
Story March 07, 2025 (Watch and/or listen on the page, linked just above.)
Republicans in Congress are pushing forward budget plans that would cut trillions in federal spending and give trillions more in tax cuts that disproportionately benefit corporations and the ultra-rich. This week, hundreds of faith leaders gathered on the Christian holy day of Ash Wednesday on Capitol Hill to voice their opposition. “There’s no way you can do the kinds of cuts they’re talking about — it’s mathematically impossible — without touching Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid,” says Bishop William Barber, one of the participants. Barber also reflects on the 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when civil rights marchers were brutalized in Selma, Alabama, and stresses that economic justice was always at the heart of the movement alongside ending segregation and winning voting rights.
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
House Republicans narrowly adopted a budget proposal last week to cut as much as $2 trillion in spending over a 10-year period, in part to fund Trump’s tax cuts. A new analysis by the Congressional Budget Office shows the proposed budget would require massive cuts to Medicaid spending. Meanwhile, Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, has warned the U.S. government will go bankrupt without his Department of Government Efficiency, DOGE, which is working to slash a trillion dollars from the deficit.
This week, hundreds of faith leaders gathered to mark the Christian holy day of Ash Wednesday on Capitol Hill and to protest the impact the proposed cuts could have on the poor and the vulnerable. This is Bishop William Barber speaking at the protest Wednesday.
BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: If an unelected technocrat can delete the financial commitments of a government established for the people and by the people, and we don’t say anything, we betray our moral commitments to liberty.
AMY GOODMAN: Faith leaders also shared findings of a new report Wednesday called “The High Moral Stake: Our Budget, Our Future,” which details how President Trump and the Republican Party are taking more essential services and money away from working people while cutting taxes for the wealthiest. It was authored by Institute for Policy Studies, the Economic Policy Institute and Repairers of the Breach.
For more, we’re joined from North Carolina by Bishop William Barber, president and senior lecturer at Repairers of the Breach, national co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign, founding director of the Center for Public Theology and Public Policy at Yale Divinity School. He’s co-author of the new book White Poverty: How Exposing Myths About Race and Class Can Reconstruct American Democracy.
Bishop Barber, welcome back to Democracy Now! on this 60th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, when voting rights activists marched — tried to march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge, led by John Lewis, and were beaten down by Alabama state troopers. Five months later, the Voting Rights Act would be signed by President Johnson. Your thoughts on putting history and this moment together, and what you were demanding on Wednesday?
BISHOP WILLIAM BARBER II: Well, thank you so much, Amy.
As I was listening to that song, “We Shall Overcome,” there’s another line that says, “We are not afraid.” And I want to thank Representative Green for his courage and showing the way of courage. He’s a dear friend of mine. He’s exactly right: You cannot wait until a dictator is in charge. You must challenge the way toward that dictatorship.
And we must remember, on this day 60 years ago, we did see that Bloody Sunday, but for nearly 40 years, Amelia Boynton, who was also beaten that day, a woman that John Lewis held in his arms, they have been working against voter suppression in that particular city. They also connected the issues of voter suppression and voter denial to economic injustice. Remember, the voting piece was supposed to be a part of the Civil Rights Act of ’64 along with raising the minimum wage to a living wage, and those things were gutted out of the ’64 Civil Rights Act, which made the ’65 march and the ’65 Voting Rights Act necessary.
At the end of that march, when they finally did reach Montgomery, Dr. King gave an amazing sermon. And he chose not to just talk about voting rights, but he chose to connect voting rights to economic injustice. And in that sermon, he said that the greatest fear of the greedy oligarchs in this country was for the masses of Black people and poor white people to join together and form a voting bloc that could fundamentally shift the economic architecture of the nation, and that every time this possibility becomes possible, the forces of extremism and the forces of division sow that division to keep it from happening.
I think we see that here today, what’s going on with this Congress. And it’s amazing to me, for instance, that they would censure Representative Green. They didn’t censure our sister out of Georgia. They didn’t censure the man who called Obama a liar on the floor. It’s a strange time that — the cheering, the applauding. But I think we are in a crisis of civilization, really, not just a crisis of democracy. It’s going to call people to have to stand, regardless of where they are.
So, what we’re dealing with right now, Amy, before I even talk about the specific policy, is this immoral philosophy that’s at work. Number one, they are operating off of the deliberate attempt to use executive orders as a way of intentionally violating the Constitution, thereby creating enough confusion to distract people from what’s going on in the Congress, because what happens in the Congress has the weight of the law, and EO doesn’t have the weight of law.
Number two, we are seeing the tyranny of technology and the dehumanization of people.
Number three, we’re seeing the attempt to make people justify their existence, which has its roots in racism, apartheid and Nazism.
Number four, we’re seeing the denial of equality on every front.
Five, we’re seeing the outright violation of freedom of speech, due to the process — due process and equal protection under the law for all persons, and an attempt to end birthright citizenship.
Number six, we are seeing the outright betrayal of liberty.
Number seven, we are seeing the idolatry of the certainty of white supremacy, that some people can decide who’s in, who’s out, who’s right, who’s wrong.
And number eight, we’re seeing the misuse of religious Christian nationalism in an attempt to falsely claim that their immoral actions are moral.
This is what is underneath, if you will, what we see going on. It is dangerous. It leads us to dictatorships and worse. And we must be courageous in this moment. I think that what you saw happen with Representative Green is just the tip of the kind of pushback we’re going to see as the weather gets warmer and as people see more and more the kind of damage that’s being suggested by this current budget and this current Congress. (snip-MORE; watch/listen on the page)
Scottie's Playtime 
