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John Merrow: First They Came For the…

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2023 //
4

John Merrow updates a famous saying from the Second World War. There was a time when every educated person knew it, often by heart. It is about indifference to the sorrow and tragedy of others.

He begins:

First they came for the transgender kids, and I did not speak out—because I am not transgender.  

Then they came for the bisexuals, the gays, and the lesbians, and I did not speak out—because I am none of those.  

Then they came for the same sex couples, and I did not speak out—because I am married to a woman.  

Then they came for me—but by that time the puritans, the fascists, and the power-hungry were in complete control, and speaking out was not allowed. 

Of course, that is not what German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller wrote back in the 1930’s, of course.  What he said was this:

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.  

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.  

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.  

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Hitler’s supporters responded to Pastor Niemoller’s warning by sending him to a concentration camp, where he stayed for eight years, until World War II ended in 1945.

His warning is regularly revised to reflect the threats of the times.  I was in college when I first encountered it, and, as I recall, that version began “First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–because I was not a Jew.” 

I’ve rewritten the lines because of what is going on now, here in the United States and elsewhere.  Do you think I am kidding?  Read this:

Robert Foster, a former Mississippi House lawmaker who lost a 2019 bid for governor, is using his social-media platform to call for the execution of political foes who support the rights of transgender people.  “Some of y’all still want to try and find political compromise with those that want to groom our school aged children and pretend men are women, etc,” the former Republican representative from Hernando, Miss., wrote in a Thursday night tweet. “I think they need to be lined up against (a) wall before a firing squad to be sent to an early judgment.”  Here’s the full story:

And this: 

Michael Knowles—right-wing political commentator associated with the Daily Wire—said “for the good of society… transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely” at the Conservative Political Action Conference Saturday afternoon.

As you are reading this, dozens of states are considering draconian legislation–more than 120 bills were introduced before the end of January–that threatens the lives of young people struggling with their sexual identity. Other states have already passed legislation, which their Republican governors have signed. The ACLU has a good list here. Another organization, GLSEN, is also keeping watch here.

Please open the link and read the rest of this fine piece.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Character, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Elections, Equity, Ethics, Evil, Extremism, Failure, Fascism, Gender, Propaganda, Racism

Extremist Judge Will Decide Future of Abortion Pills

By dianeravitch
March 22, 2023 //
7

Mimi Swartz of the Texas Monthly described the federal judge who will decide whether to allow abortion pills to remain legal. He was appointed by Trump, undoubtedly recommended by the Federalist Society, which vetted all of Trump’s judicial picks. This judge was his parting gift to the anti-abortion lobby. Judge Kacsmaryk has the power to declare the abortion pill illegal across the nation; he is taking testimony about whether the drug was wrongly approved by the Federal Drug Administration in 2000. Medically-induced drugs account for more than half of the abortions in the U.S.

Much of the public attention now focused on Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk, the Amarillo-based federal judge who is expected to soon outlaw mifepristone, the so-called abortion pill, has focused on the ways in which his political and religious beliefs have shaped his legal career. His fervent opposition to abortion arose as an issue during his confirmation hearings in 2019, as did his staunch opposition to same-sex marriage and his previous statement that transgender Americans were “delusional.” He isn’t a fan of birth control either: in 2015, as deputy general counsel for a Plano-based nonprofit law firm called First Liberty Institute, Kacsmaryk arguedin an amicus brief that pharmacies should be prevented from providing contraception. Kacsmaryk’s time on the bench has only reinforced the view that he is an activist judge who allows his private beliefs to govern his legal opinions—and it seems that the antiabortion activists who venue-shopped to land the mifepristone suit in his courtroom would agree.

The Washington Post wrote:

AMARILLO, Tex. — The federal judge who could upend access to a key abortion medication seemed open on Wednesday to the argument that the drug had not been properly vetted and could be unsafe — claims the Food and Drug Administration and leading health organizations strongly contest.

While the antiabortion group challenging the drug acknowledged there is no precedent for a court to order the suspension of a long-approved medication, U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk questioned whether mifepristone has met the rigorous federal standard necessary to be prescribed to patients in the United States.

He asked a lawyer for the group whether the court could unilaterally withdraw FDA approval for a drug, and engaged with attorneys for both sides about whether mailing the pills should be prohibited because of a 19th-century law that bans sending articles “for any indecent or immoral use” through the Postal Service….

During the hearing, lawyers for the antiabortion group argued that the FDA’s decision to allow abortion pills to be distributed by mail violates a 150-year-old law. The Comstock Act, they say, prohibits mailing any drug used “for producing abortion.”

Those arguments appeared to resonate with Kacsmaryk, who asked government lawyers if there was “any dispute” that the law prohibits mailing abortion medication.

The Justice Department argued that the modern-day reading of the law has never prevented the mailing of abortion pills, in part because the medications have other uses and because abortion remains legal in many circumstances.

Categories Civil Rights, Elections, Extremism, Gender, Trump

Florida: State Education Board Will Extend “Don’t Say Gay” Through 12th Grade

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2023 //
26

Florida’s state board of education voted to expand its ban on any mention of LGBT topics through 12th grade, effectively censoring the topic for all grades. This move is intended to protect the rights of parents who don’t want their children to learn that gay people exist, but it is a slap in the face to gay families in Florida, as well as to people who are comfortable with discussions of reality.

The DeSantis administration next month could effectively bar all public school teachers from providing classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity, a move that would expand Florida’s controversial 2022 law and go even further than the legislation Republican lawmakers are pushing in Tallahassee this spring.

A proposed State Board of Education rule, scheduled for a vote next month, says teachers in grades 4 to 12 “shall not intentionally provide classroom instruction” on either topic, expanding the prohibition in last year’s law that critics dubbed “don’t say gay.” Teachers who violate the rule could face suspension or revocation of their teaching licenses.


Equality Florida, the state’s largest LGBTQ advocacy group, views the suggested rule as part of “larger, disturbing trend” where Florida’s Republican leaders seek to use “every lever of government to censor conversations about LGBTQ people,” said Brandon Wolf, the group’s spokesman.


The goal, he said, seems to be to paint LGBTQ people as “wrong,” Wolf said, “or that we should be written out of society.”

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, DeSantis, Florida, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Gender

Florida Plans to Expand “Don’t Say Gay” Law Through Middle School

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2023 //
8

Florida legislators and Governor DeSantis are so pleased with the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” law, that they plan to expand it. The original law prohibited any discussion of sexuality and gender identity in grades K-3. The new law will prohibit such discussions in grades K-8. So, the state will cement and expand their combination of hate and censorship. Children of gay parents will be forbidden to mention their family.

TIME magazine reported:

Republican lawmakers in Florida appear likely to expand provisions in the Parental Rights in Education Act, or so-called ‘Don’t Say Gay’ Law with a host of new restrictions on what teachers can and cannot say in their classrooms about gender, sex, and sexual orientation.

Bills currently being debated in the Florida state House would make it a statewide school policy to define sex as “an immutable biological trait.” Teachers would be banned from addressing students by pronouns that differ from those they were assigned at birth. Staff would also be unable to share their own preferred pronouns if they do not “correspond to his or her sex.”

The bills would also heavily restrict in-school discussions about sexual orientation or gender identity until ninth grade when most students are 14 or 15. The current “Don’t Say Gay” law bans such discussions through third grade.

Open the link to read on.

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, DeSantis, Florida, Gender

DeSantis Attacks Parental Right to Decide Whether to Bring Their Children to Drag Shows

By dianeravitch
March 21, 2023 //
11

Ron DeSantis is trying to be the Anthony Comstock of the 21st century. Do you know who Comstock was? He was the most notorious crusader against “vice” in the United States of his era or any other era. Comstock was responsible for the destruction of tens of thousands of books that he considered lewd, including marriage manuals. He was responsible for criminalizing the mailing of anything that was lewd or lascivious, anything that would cause abortions, anything that would encourage contraception. The Comstock Law, passed in 1873, may be revived if a Trump judge in Amarillo, Texas, bans the mailing of abortion pills in the next few days or weeks.

Anthony Comstock (March 7, 1844 – September 21, 1915) was an anti-vice activist, United States Postal Inspector, and secretary of the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice (NYSSV), who was dedicated to upholding Christian morality. He opposed obscene literature, abortion, contraception, gambling, prostitution, and patent medicine.

Like Comstock, DeSantis wants to make a national reputation by crusading against lewd books, abortion, and—unknown in Comstock’s day—drag queens. Comstock would have reacted to drag queens just like DeSantis: with horror and revulsion and a passion to criminalize them. Comstock wanted to control people’s personal decisions; so does DeSantis.

In another display of DeSantis’s growing zeal for control of everyone’s life, the state of Florida threatened to take away the liquor license of a major hotel that permitted drag shows where parents brought children with them. DeSantis sent an undercover police unit to watch the show when it opened at the Plaza Live in Orlando to determine whether there were any minors in the audience and whether they were exposed to lewd content; the investigators reported that there were minors, they were accompanied by their parents, and the show didn’t contain any lascivious content. No matter: the state is beginning proceedings to withdraw the establishment’s liquor license, which will likely close it down.

What about “parental rights”? Do parents no longer have the right to decide whether their minor children are mature enough to see a man dressed in women’s clothes? Will they also be forbidden to take their children to see the films starring Dustin Hoffman in “Tootsie” or Jack Lemmon and Tony Curtis in “Some Like It Hot”?

Does DeSantis know that men traditionally played women’s roles in Shakespeare plays and other live shows when women were not allowed to act in public? What drives his panic about anything gay?

Gov. Ron DeSantis’ administration is seeking to revoke the Hyatt Regency Miami’s liquor license because one of its facilities hosted a Christmas-themed drag queen show in which the state claimed minors were present.

The event — “A Drag Queen Christmas” — was held on Dec. 27 at the James L. Knight Center, a 4,500-seat auditorium affiliated with the hotel that typically hosts concerts, graduation ceremonies and other events.

The December show was hosted by Nina West, a star from the reality show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” and minors were required to be accompanied by an adult to attend.

In a 17-page administrative complaint, state regulators said the venue’s admission policies allowed minors to attend the event and as a result, they were exposed to performers who were “wearing sexually suggestive clothing and prosthetic female genitalia.”

“The nature of the show’s performances, particularly when conducted in the presence of young children, corrupts the public morals and outrages the sense of public decency,” according to the complaint, filed by the Department of Business and Professional Regulation. Sometimes, administrative complaints such as the one filed Tuesday can take more than year to resolve.

The revocation of a license is a severe penalty that is one of several possible sanctions the state could issue for violations. The state filed a nearly identical administrative complaint last August against a Miami restaurant, R House, over drag queen weekend brunch. That case remains open and the bar is still operating and serving liquor.

In December, state regulators were also scrutinizing events across the state, including Fort Lauderdale, over complaints against the same holiday show held at the Hyatt.

The decision to target the Hyatt Regency Miami on Tuesday comes as the DeSantis administration and the Republican-led Legislature intensify the crackdown on drag queen shows that allow minors in the audience.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article273137760.html#storylink=cpy

On the same show in Orlando:

When the historic Plaza Live theater in Orlando hosted an event last December called “A Drag Queen Christmas,” the show drew a full house, noisy street demonstrators — and a small squad of undercover state agents there to document whether children were being exposed to sights that ran afoul of Florida’s decency law.

The Dec. 28 performance featured campy skits like “Screwdolph the Red-Nippled Man Deer” and shimmying, bare-chested men who wouldn’t have been out of place at a Madonna concert. Also a hip thrust or two, similar to what is sometimes indulged in by NFL players after a touchdown. All of it was dutifully recorded by the undercover agents on state-issued iPhones.

But while the agents took photos of three minors at the Orlando drag show — who appeared to be accompanied by adults — they acknowledged that nothing indecent had happened on stage, according to an incident report obtained exclusively by the Miami Herald.

“Besides some of the outfits being provocative (bikinis and short shorts), agents did not witness any lewd acts such as exposure of genital organs,” the brief report stated. “The performers did not have any physical contact while performing to the rhythm of the music with any patrons.”

Still, the state’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation proceeded to file a complaint against the nonprofit that runs Plaza Live, claiming the venue had illegally exposed children to sexual content. The complaint, issued Feb. 3, seeks to strip the small, nonprofit theater of its liquor license — a serious blow that would likely put it out of business.

It’s all part of Gov. Ron DeSantis’ statewide crackdown on drag shows, which could escalate further as legislators draft new laws to tighten restrictions on venues that allow minors into those performances. DeSantis has said he believes “sexualized” drag shows are dangerous for kids.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/state-politics/article273247175.html

The legislature also plans to restrict the pronouns that teachers use, regardless of their parents wishes.

Read more at: https://www.miamiherald.com/article273384410.html#storylink=cpy

Republican lawmakers say Florida school employees should not be allowed to call students by pronouns that differ from those given to them at birth — even in cases when a parent is OK with it. The idea is moving forward in proposed legislation that would also require every public K-12 school to have a policy that says it is “false” to ascribe to a person a pronoun that does not correspond to their assigned sex, which under the law would be defined as an “immutable, or unchanging, biological trait.” It is the latest salvo in the state’s ongoing battle over transgender rights in schools and society at large, as Gov. Ron DeSantis makes cultural issues a cornerstone of an expected presidential bid later this year.

https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/education/article273384410.html

DeSantis expects to win the Presidency by campaigning as the Biggest Prude in the nation.

Ron DeSantis: our Anthony Comstock.

Categories Accountability, DeSantis, Florida, Gender, Hypocrisy, Ignorance, Parents, Stupid

Nebraska: Legislator Blocks All Bills by Filibustering Against Anti-trans Bill

By dianeravitch
March 17, 2023 //
24

A Democratic legislator in Nebraska has brought all legislation to a halt by filibustering against an anti-trans bill. The legislator is married, with children. The legislative session is half-way done.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — It was a mundane, unanimously supported bill on liquor taxation that saw state Sen. Machaela Cavanaugh take to the mic on the Nebraska Legislature floor last week. She offered her support, then spent the next three days discussing everything but the bill, including her favorite Girl Scout cookies, Omaha’s best doughnuts and the plot of the animated movie “Madagascar.”

She also spent that time railing against an unrelated bill that would outlaw gender-affirming therapies for those 18 and younger. It was the advancement of that bill out of committee that led Cavanaugh to promise three weeks ago to filibuster every bill that comes before the Legislature this year — even the ones she supports.

“If this Legislature collectively decides that legislating hate against children is our priority, then I am going to make it painful — painful for everyone,” the Omaha married mother of three said. “I will burn the session to the ground over this bill.”

True to her word, Cavanaugh has slowed the business of passing laws to a crawl by introducing amendment after amendment to every bill that makes it to the state Senate floor and taking up all eight debate hours allowed by the rules — even during the week she was suffering from strep throat. Wednesday marks the halfway point of this year’s 90-day session, and not a single bill will have passed thanks to Cavanaugh’s relentless filibustering.

True to her word, Cavanaugh has slowed the business of passing laws to a crawl by introducing amendment after amendment to every bill that makes it to the state Senate floor and taking up all eight debate hours allowed by the rules — even during the week she was suffering from strep throat. Wednesday marks the halfway point of this year’s 90-day session, and not a single bill will have passed thanks to Cavanaugh’s relentless filibustering….

“This is a bill that attacks trans children,” Cavanaugh said. “It is legislating hate. It is legislating meanness. The children of Nebraska deserve to have somebody stand up and fight for them.”

Categories Gender, Nebraska

GOP Launches Anti-Trans Bill in House

By dianeravitch
March 16, 2023 //
40

Most of us probably didn’t realize that the controversy over transgender athletes was a matter deserving Congressional action.

Should trans women be allowed to compete in women’s sports? Should trans men be allowed to compete in men’s sports? I assumed that the governing bodies of the sports would settle the matter.

But Republicans believe it is necessary to pass a federal law. They know the Senate won’t pass whatever law they write, so this is a symbolic gesture to their base, some of whom are terrified of trans people.

SPORTS BILL ADVANCES FOR FIRST TIME —Congressional Republicans are the closest they’ve ever been to passing legislation that would prohibit transgender women and girls from playing on sports teams that match their gender identity.

— The bill — H.R. 734 (118), the Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act of 2023 — was introduced by Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) several times, but was taken up by the House Education and Workforce Committee for the first time last week in a 16-hour markup. It would amend Title IX, the federal education law that bars sex-based discrimination, to define sex as based solely on a person’s reproductive biology and genetics at birth.

— The measure was recommended by the committee in a vote on party lines and is now primed for a vote on the House floor. While H.R. 5 (118), the Parents Bill of Rights Act, cleared the committee the same day and is slated for a vote in two weeks, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s office said they haven’t made any announcements on when they will take up the sports bill for a vote. House Republicans are expected to pass the bill with their slim majority, but it’s not likely that the Democrat-controlled Senate will allow the bill to move.

— The legislation will be a way for the GOP to force Democrats to go on record with their support for transgender students to play sports, a key part of the GOP’s 2022 midterm policy agenda. It is also a direct rebuke of the Biden administration’s proposed Title IX rule, which seeks to codify protections based on sexual orientation and gender identity. The Education Department is expected to unveil its final rule in May, though it said it would make a separate rule for sports.

Categories Gender, Politics, Republicans

ProPublica on The Most Anti-Democratic and Powerful Group You Never Heard Of

By dianeravitch
March 15, 2023 //
13

ProPublica wrote recently about a powerful organization of far-right conservatives that carefully avoids public scrutiny. They are wealthy, powerful, and networked, thanks to the Federalist Society and its mastermind Leonard Leo. Leo is the guy who picked judges for Trump and engineered the selection of Brett Kanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett.

Please read this article about Teneo, an organization with long tentacles and a goal of crushing liberal ideas, ideas that are central to our democracy.

A few tidbits:

ProPublica and Documented have obtained more than 50 hours of internal Teneo videos and hundreds of pages of documents that reveal the organization’s ambitious agenda, influential membership and burgeoning clout. We have also interviewed Teneo members and people familiar with the group’s activities. The videos, documents and interviews provide an unfiltered look at the lens through which the group views the power of the left — and how it plans to combat it.

In response to questions for this story, Leo said in a statement: “Teneo’s young membership proves that the conservative movement is poised to be even more talented, driven, and successful in the future. This is a group that knows how to build winning teams.”

The records show Teneo’s members have included a host of prominent names from the conservative vanguard, including such elected officials as U.S. Sens. J.D. Vance of Ohio and Missouri’s Josh Hawley, a co-founder of the group. Other members have included Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, now the fourth-ranking House Republican, as well as Nebraska’s attorney general and Virginia’s solicitor general. Three senior aides to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a potential 2024 presidential candidate, are members. Another is the federal judge who struck down a Biden administration mask mandate. The heads of the Republican Attorneys General Association, Republican State Leadership Committee and Turning Point USA — all key cogs in the world of national conservative politics — have been listed as Teneo members…

Teneo co-founder Evan Baehr, a tech entrepreneur and veteran of conservative activism, said in a 2019 video for new members that Teneo had “many, many, many dozens” of members working in the Trump administration, including in the White House, State Department, Justice Department and Pentagon. “They’re everywhere….”

Soon after Leo took an interest in Teneo, the group’s finances soared. Annual revenue reached$2.3 million in 2020 and nearly $5 million in 2021, according to tax records. In 2021, the bulk of Teneo’s income — more than $3 million — came from one source: DonorsTrust, a clearinghouse for conservative, libertarian and other charitable gifts that masks the original source of the money. In 2020, the Leo-run group that received the Chicago business owner’s $1.6 billion donation gave $41 million to DonorsTrust, which had $1.5 billion in assets as of 2021.

Teneo’s other funders have included marquee conservative donors: hedge fund investor Paul Singer, Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus, the Charles Koch Foundation, the Bradley Foundation, and the DeVos family, according to Baehr.

As the group’s finances improved, its videos became much more professionally produced, and its website underwent a dramatic upgrade from previous iterations. All of this was part of what Baehr called “Teneo 2.0,” a major leap forward for the group, driven in part by Leo’s guidance and involvement….

Many of the connections happen at Teneo’s annual retreat, which brings together hundreds of members and their spouses, plus allies including politicians like Texas Sen. Ted Cruz and DeSantis as well as business leaders and prominent academics. Speakers at past Teneo retreats have included luminaries spanning politics, culture, business and the law: New York Times columnist David Brooks, federal judge Trevor McFadden, Blackwater founder Erik Prince, “Woke, Inc.” author and 2024 presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy, former Trump cabinet official and 2024 presidential hopeful Nikki Haley, ultrawealthy donors and activists Dick and Betsy DeVos, and Chick-fil-A board chair Dan Cathy.

These are the only posts today. Read them. Think about it. What did you learn? What should we do? None of us is a billionaire. How can we save our democracy?

Organize. Be informed. Vote.

Categories Accountability, Bigotry, Billionaires, Censorship, Corruption, Cruelty, Dark Money, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Elections, Environment, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Freedom of the Press, Funding, Gender, Injustice, Lies, Privatization, Race, Religion, Republicans, Trump

Heather Cox Richardson: Equality Means Equality

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2023 //
28

Heather Cox Richardson writes in her blog “Letters from an American” about the Republican Right’s fascination with the authoritarian leader of Hungary, Viktor Orbán. Orbán is a critic of liberal democracy and a great admirer of Trump. It’s scary.

She writes:

At the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) last weekend, Daily Wire host Michael Knowles said that “for the good of society…transgenderism must be eradicated from public life entirely—the whole preposterous ideology, at every level.” He worded his statement in such a way that it would inevitably create outrage that he could then angrily refute by insisting that “eradicating transgenderism” was not the same thing as eradicating transgender people. This sort of word game is a well-known right-wing tactic for garnering media attention.

Make no mistake: this attack on transgender people represents a deadly attack on the fundamental principle of American democracy, the idea that all people are created equal.

CPAC and its representatives have become increasingly close to Hungarian president Victor Orbán as he has asserted autocratic power in his own country. Orbán has explicitly rejected the liberal democracy that his country used to enjoy, saying that its emphasis on multiculturalism weakens national cultures while its insistence on human equality undermines traditional society by recognizing that women and LGBTQ people have the same rights as straight white men. The age of liberal democracy is over, he says, and a new age has begun.

In place of equality, Orbán advocates what he calls “illiberal democracy” or “Christian democracy.” “Christian democracy is, by definition, not liberal,” he said in July 2018; “it is, if you like, illiberal. And we can specifically say this in connection with a few important issues—say, three great issues. Liberal democracy is in favor of multiculturalism, while Christian democracy gives priority to Christian culture; this is an illiberal concept. Liberal democracy is pro-immigration, while Christian democracy is anti-immigration; this is again a genuinely illiberal concept. And liberal democracy sides with adaptable family models, while Christian democracy rests on the foundations of the Christian family model; once more, this is an illiberal concept.”

Orbán has focused on LBGTQ rights as a danger to “Western civilization.” Arguing the need to protect children, his party has made it impossible for transgender people to change their gender identification on legal documents and made it illegal to share with minors any content that can be interpreted as promoting an LBGTQ lifestyle. After Orbán put allies in charge of Hungarian universities, his government banned public funding for gender studies courses. According to his chief of staff: “The Hungarian government is of the clear view that people are born either men or women.”

As the opening speaker at CPAC in Texas last August, Orbán called for the establishment of a global right wing to continue to work together to destroy liberal democracy and establish Christian democracy.

The American right wing has heard the call, openly embracing Orbán’s principles. Vox senior correspondent Zack Beauchamp, who is a crackerjack analyst of right-wing political ideology both in the U.S. and abroad, noted in 2021 the rise of right-wing ideologues who saw themselves as the vanguard of a “post-liberal order.”

Beauchamp explained that these ideologues reject American democracy. They argue that “religious liberty, limited government, ‘the inviolability of private institutions (e.g., corporations),’ academic freedom, constitutional originalism, free markets, and free speech”—all central tenets of democracy—have created “liberal totalitarianism” that has destroyed “all institutions that were originally responsible for fostering human virtue: family, ennobling friendship, community, university, polity, church.”

They see the government institutions that defend these democratic tenets as part of a totalitarian system designed to destroy national virtue. If this were truly the case (it is not), it would be an act of heroism to try to destroy those systems altogether. Right-wing attacks on the FBI, the Department of Justice, and even the government itself over the arrest of January 6th rioters who they insist were peaceful tourists shore up the idea that the FBI and DOJ are part of a government determined to crush Trump supporters. That ideology invites those who believe it to continue to attack our government.

Knowles’s statement last week that transgenderism must be eradicated from public life was not simply an attack on transgender individuals, although it was certainly that. Tapping into the anti-LGBTQ sentiment that Orbán and those like him have used to win voters, the statement was a crucial salvo in the attempt to destroy American democracy and replace it with Christian nationalism.

But there is a very simple answer to the radical right’s attack on LGBTQ people that also answers their rejection of democracy. It is an answer that history has proved again and again.

Once you give up the principle of equality, you have given up the whole game. You have admitted the principle that people are unequal, and that some people are better than others. Once you have replaced the principle of equality with the idea that humans are unequal, you have stamped your approval on the idea of rulers and subjects. At that point, all you can do is to hope that no one in power decides that you belong in the lesser group.

In 1858, Abraham Lincoln, then a candidate for the Senate, warned that arguments limiting American equality to white men and excluding black Americans were the same arguments “that kings have made for enslaving the people in all ages of the world…. Turn in whatever way you will—whether it come from the mouth of a King, an excuse for enslaving the people of his country, or from the mouth of men of one race as a reason for enslaving the men of another race, it is all the same old serpent.”

Either people—men, in his day—were equal, or they were not. Lincoln went on: “I should like to know if taking this old Declaration of Independence, which declares that all men are equal upon principle and making exceptions to it…where will it stop?”

Categories Bigotry, Censorship, Democracy, Elections, Extremism, Fascism, Freedom, Gender, Inequality, International, Lies, Republicans, Trump

Florida: Stand Up to the Big Bully Ron DeSantis!

By dianeravitch
March 14, 2023 //
20

I had the pleasure of speaking by Zoom to a meeting of the Pastors for Florida Children. The event was reported by Baptist Global News.

The morning session was also addressed by Baptist minister and retired Arkansas Judge Wendell Griffen. Although we have never met, our messages were in synch: Do not let the authoritarian Governor Ron DeSantis intimidate you!

Baptist minister and retired Arkansas judge Wendell Griffen stood before an audience of faith leaders and education advocates in Tallahassee, Fla., March 9, pointed to his lapel and dared Gov. Ron DeSantis to have him apprehended for being politically and racially aware.

“I wore a ‘woke’ button on purpose. I want to get arrested for being woke. I plead guilty to being woke. I want to be convicted of being woke,” Griffen said during a prayer breakfast sponsored by Pastors for Florida Children.

Wendell Griffen

Griffen, a BNG columnist and pastor of New Millennium Church in Little Rock, urged the in-person and virtual interfaith and multiracial audience to be equally defiant of Florida’s political leaders. “Be a community of prophets but teach as one and correct, confront, organize, interact, defy, dissent, disrupt.”

Jewish, Christian and Muslim participants who prayed ahead of the speeches by Griffen and education historian Diane Ravitch focused on DeSantis’ prohibition of books that teach about racial injustice and inclusion….

Please open the link and read his bold, wise, and brave advice.

Ravitch opened with a double-barreled barrage at DeSantis’ efforts to dismantle freedom of inquiry in public schools.

“I write a daily blog, and I find that it’s being overwhelmed by the bad news from Florida,” she said. “There doesn’t seem to be anything good coming from your elected officials. If anything, it seems to be building a more and more authoritarian empire to control the thinking of everybody in the state.”

She said DeSantis seems to be going out of his way to disprove Martin Luther King Jr.’s famous saying that “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”

“Your governor and your legislature are trying to flatten that arc so that it does not bend
towards justice,” she declared.

Current political events in Florida do not impact public schools alone, Ravitch said. “Florida today is at the very apex of a movement to turn the clock back a century, to turn the clock back on religious freedom, on racial justice and on all the evolution we have experienced over this past century to make ours a more just society. Your governor is creating a model of thought control and calling it freedom. Every time I see him standing in front of a banner that says ‘freedom,’ I’m reminded of George Orwell’s 1984, where freedom equals slavery.”

The conservative attack on the concept of “woke” is another sign of burgeoning authoritarianism, she said.

“We have to redeem that word. It means being awake — awake to injustice, awake to history, awake to all the things that are wrong in our society and that have been wrong over the centuries. And his (DeSantis’) idea of woke is simply to eliminate critical thinking about history and even knowledge of history. And this is very dangerous.”

And that’s only the beginning.

Categories Academic Freedom, Accountability, Bigotry, Censorship, Civil Rights, Cruelty, Democracy, DeSantis, Disruption, Education Industry, Evil, Extremism, Fascism, Florida, Freedom, Freedom of Speech, Gender, History, Injustice, Lies, Racism, Resistance, Supporting public schools, Teaching
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