Who Are They Coming After Next? If We Didn’t Believe It Before, We’ll Believe It Now

The volume of birdcalls increases as night slowly transforms into day. It’s spring; my wife’s flowers are painting the yard beautiful colors. The air smells sweet to breathe. On a day like this, how can we believe it can all end? How can we believe our savings can be stolen or depleted, the protections on air quality ended, so the air will no longer smell so sweet or be safely breathed. Bird habitats dangerously threatened. The safety of my home and property ended. And all by the DT government. How do we see the ferocity of such a beast when so much of what was, and so much beauty remains?

 

The Washington Post recently revealed that DT is having plans written up to weaken the independence of the nuclear safety regulators and relax rules that protect us from radiation exposure. Why? To fast track the resurrection of the nuclear power industry.

 

According to Reuters, on May 11 FEMA announced that, to align themselves with DT’s intentions, they are sharply reducing training for state and local weather and other emergency managers. This would leave all storm-prone communities more vulnerable, less prepared to handle the often-devastating effects of hurricanes and other catastrophic weather events, all of which have been happening more frequently with global warming. And they’re doing this just a few weeks before the June 1 beginning of hurricane season, a hurricane season predicted to be busier than normal this year.

 

Why? They claim their aim is to reduce waste and save money. But it’s difficult to understand how paying the people who help us prepare for storms and rebuild afterwards is wasteful—unless you’re a billionaire and think your money makes you immune from needing their services.

 

And this is happening in every aspect of government, affecting every aspect of our lives, from weakening rules that protect our water from highly dangerous, forever chemicals, firing those who fight forest fires, firing inspectors who provide food safety, healthcare, to stealing our retirement savings, habeas corpus, and even our right to speak out and vote.

 

And if that isn’t enough, this really scared me⎼ The Mayor of Newark, Ras Baraka, was recently arrested by DHS agents and charged with trespass at an ICE detention facility. This was a private detention facility, opened despite a law prohibiting such, and without allowing legally required inspections by the state. The mayor was there in support of a congressional delegation aiming to inspect the site and was not on private land but public property. The mayor said he had been standing there for over an hour when arrested and had not been warned to move.

 

The following day, a DHS spokesperson said they were considering also arresting the 3 member Democratic Congressional delegation that was at the facility with the mayor. They accused the Democrats of assaulting ICE agents.

 

One member of the Democratic delegation, Representative Rob Menendez, said: “As Members of Congress, we have a legal right to conduct oversight at any DHS facility without prior notice, as we have already done twice this year. Throughout every step of this visit, ICE attempted to intimidate everyone involved and impede our ability to conduct oversight.” Menendez added, “This is like nothing I’ve ever seen before, and I am shocked and disturbed that something like this happened in our community.”

 

Another member of the delegation, Representative LaMonica McIver added that the lawmakers were met with “contempt, disrespect, and aggression from ICE.” So⎼ who is violating the law here?

 

And this comes just a few weeks after DT’s Department of Justice arrested Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan…

 

*To read the entire piece, please go to The Good Men Project.

Reducing Anxiety so We Can Live Through the Next Few Days. Final Thoughts: In an Autocracy, We as Citizens, Consumers, Patients, and Workers Lose Our Rights

First, a personal concern:

How do we reduce the anxiety most of us are feeling about the election to something we can live with? DT has done all he can to make this difficult. He has worked to make the election as chaotic and threatening as possible. He’s done all he could to try to fix or hold up election results and frighten election workers. He’s promised if he wins to rule like a dictator, use the military against those who oppose him, and violence if he loses. He has falsely claimed for years that the 2020 election was rigged, and now he claims this one’s been rigged, so whether he loses, or wins, we won’t know who our next president will be for hours, days or weeks after Tuesday. But the evidence shows that the only candidate in the 2024 race who’s tried to illegally interfere in the election process is DT himself.

 

I’m tired of him. I want him to just lose, again, but this time, disappear from the political stage. I’m trying different strategies to keep my eyes open while keeping my heart rate as comfortable as I can. One strategy is to do whatever and as much as I can to get out the vote, or as Michelle Obama said, to do something.

 

I’m also considering my own health, mental and physical. One way I’m doing that is to study how, in the worst of times, maybe we can get stronger. In the midst of my fright, maybe there’s buried the way to face what frightens me. In a book about the Japanese Zen teacher and philosopher Dogen Zenji by Shinshu Roberts, the author quotes Dogen and other teachers on facing what we don’t like. The mental states that we wish would just disappear, he says, might just reveal the wisdom that we need. We don’t find wisdom in a vacuum. There are things we must put off; it’s difficult to talk about wisdom when our mind is focused on survival. Yet our lives are so much better when we can bring as much awareness as possible to whatever we face.

 

Maybe if we can just stop what we’re doing, and sit, stand, exercise, or take a walk in a beautiful area; maybe take a breath. Feel our feet on the floor. For one minute we can take a holiday and feel this moment, now, so fully we won’t have the space to imagine later. Maybe when it’s possible and with as much awareness as possible, we can write down or dance out the thoughts in our mind or the feelings in our body, without editing or hiding them. Then we will better perceive how to face the next moment, no matter what occurs. And, if we haven’t done so already, we can be relaxed yet alert when we vote.

 

A last argument before the election:

A week before election day, Kamala Harris gave a powerful final argument for her campaign. She said we all know who DT is and what he’d delver, more chaos, hate, and division. More power and wealth to the rich at the expense of the rest of us. For example, his 10-50% tariff on imported goods would raise the burden on most of us hundreds to  thousands of dollars while proportionally reducing the burden on the rich. Many economists warn his plans could crash the economy.

 

But what needs to be said more clearly is that the economy and the cost of living is not a separate issue from that of democracy….

 

*To read the whole article, please go to The Good Men Project.