It's Not About the Fireworks

Adam Serwer:

Black Americans did not abandon liberal democracy because of slavery, Jim Crow, and the systematic destruction of whatever wealth they managed to accumulate; instead they took up arms in two world wars to defend it.

Japanese Americans did not reject liberal democracy because of internment or the racist humiliation of Asian exclusion; they risked life and limb to preserve it.

Latinos did not abandon liberal democracy because of “Operation Wetback,” or Proposition 187, or because of a man who won a presidential election on the strength of his hostility toward Latino immigrants.

Gay, lesbian, and trans Americans did not abandon liberal democracy over decades of discrimination and abandonment in the face of an epidemic.

This is, in part, because doing so would be tantamount to giving the state permission to destroy them, a thought so foreign to these defenders of the supposedly endangered religious right that the possibility has not even occurred to them. 

But it is also because of a peculiar irony of American history: The American creed has no more devoted adherents than those who have been historically denied its promises, and no more fair-weather friends than those who have taken them for granted.

As Molly Ivins wrote, the history of America is one long struggle to bestow the rights the Constitution gave to only rich white men to all those the Constitution left out: black people and female people and brown people and poor people and asian people disabled people and LGBTQ people.

Extending and expanding those rights makes this nation stronger.  Denying them makes us weak.

LGBTQ Pride in Pikeville

This is exceptionally good news.  This is a huge step forward for liberal values and progress in a deeply conservative part of Kentucky.  All is not lost, fellow progressives, as long as we can make this happen.

From the Herald:

Kyle May always thought he would have to leave Eastern Kentucky to find a place he belonged.

“For years I tried to get out,” said May, who is gay. “I tried to move. I tried to get jobs elsewhere. I tried interviewing relentlessly.”

But the chance to leave never came for the Pikeville native who graduated from Morehead State University in Rowan County, went to graduate school at Alice Lloyd College in Knott County and eventually moved to Paintsville.

May, 29, now works as a clinical director at Mountain Comprehensive Care in Prestonsburg.

May’s urge to leave reflects the feelings of many LGBTQ people who grow up in this rural and mostly-conservative part of the state, said Gina Bryant, who helped organize a gay pride event in Pikeville this weekend — the first of its kind for the city.

The festival, planned for Saturday afternoon in Pikeville City Park, will include music, a drag show, a “free hugs” booth, vendors and speakers. The restaurant Bank 253 will host an after-party.

Bryant and May, who also helped organize the event, hope the celebration signals a more inclusive and progressive future for Pikeville and Eastern Kentucky.

LGBTQ people who grow up here often feel isolated because of the lack of an organized and active community, Bryant said, and that feeling of isolation drives them out of the region, often to Lexington or Louisville.

“Most of us felt like we would have to move out of this area to really feel accepted and to really find a community,” said Bryant, who is bisexual. “So I think this is something, for most of us, that we’ve been wanting our entire lives.”

The Only Answer is Abortion on Demand

We should have started massive protests back in 1976, when the Hyde Amendment barred using Medicaid funds for abortion.  And ramped them up in 1992, when the Supreme Court told freakazoids they could restrict abortion with bullshit laws.

We should have been screaming then that abortion is a civil and human right and none of your fucking business.

Instead we've treated abortion like a shameful special favor that women get only after abasing themselves and enduring humiliation.

The Orange Loser's Supreme Court nominee is going to kill abortion rights in this country.  Never mind just overturning Roe v. Wade; the anti-abortion motherfuckers are going after contraception, employment, and the right to vote.

Oh, not that explicitly of course. Every small step they make sound sooooo reasonable, until women can't move without permission.

Scott Lemeiux at LGM:

The focus on term limits is a diversionary tactic intended to conceal a pincer movement carefully designed to strangle a woman’s right to choose. On the one hand, the number of weeks a woman has to obtain an abortion gets smaller and smaller; on the other hand, the hurdles for women seeking an abortion in a timely matter grow higher and higher.

This is particularly important because permitting onerous regulations targeted at abortion clinics is one way the Supreme Court can empower states to make abortion inaccessible without immediately and explicitly overruling Roe.

Stop saying OK, just this one little rule, then we can still have some abortions, in some states, for some (rich) women. That's how women are losing everything.

Abortion on Demand!  Free of charge, no questions asked, 24-7 clinics on every street corner.

Don't listen to me; listen to Michelle Wolfe:

Southern Towns Try Just Killing Off All the Browns

So the places that committed treason in defense of slavery and are still proud of it are now denying basic human rights to non-whites.  Big surprise.

Think Progress:

Sixteen localities in six southern states have been restricting access to basic utility services, including gas, water, and electricity, according to nonprofit advocacy organization Project South, which sent letters to the cities Monday demanding an end to discriminatory practices like requiring U.S.-issued photo identification and social security numbers in order to receive public services.

Project South asserted that Latinx immigrants in various cities in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas, who cannot provide social security numbers and IDs have been overwhelmingly impacted by the restrictions, which have left countless residents without the basic utilities needed to live.

Not because they're not paying their bills.  Just because they are not White, and don't give me that "illegal immigrant" bullshit.  Show me Just. One. public official who is full-blooded Native American. 'Cause everybody who is NOT full-blooded Native American is a fucking immigrant.

The practice of requiring photo ID and social security numbers is not mandated by local or state law. It also violates federal laws, including the Privacy Act of 1974, which forbids the denial of government services on the basis of a person’s refusal to share their social security number, as well as the Fair Housing Act, which prohibits policies that discriminate on the basis of a number of factors, including race.

“Access to water and utilities is a human right, It’s a fundamental human right,” Shahshahani added, pointing to the fact that the United Nations Human Rights Council and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights recognize access to basic utilities as linked to the right to life and human dignity. “Every human being should have access to water regardless of their immigration background.”

The Rights We've Been Waiting 80 Years For

These are the human rights FDR wanted to enshrine in our Constitution eight decades ago.  The repugs beat him back then, and have been beating the American people into the ground ever since.

These rights are not radical.  They are basic human rights available and affordable to hundreds of millions of people in civilized nations around the globe.

But we're not civilized.  We're corporate drones and peasants in a capitalistic, kleptocratic plutocracy. Because the obscenely rich have stolen every dime to ensure we never have the strength to demand our rights.

Noah at Down with Tyranny:

Stop Squirming

Via Down with Tyranny.