This week the FBI arrested the leader of the Oath
Keepers (a para-military group) and charged him with seditious conspiracy against
the Government of the United States. Stewart Rhodes, a former Army paratrooper
with a law degree, was at the January 6th insurrection and members
of his organization entered the Capitol; he claims he stayed outside and was
thus safe from prosecution for any of the damages or assaults on that day. According
to the charges, he led a group that entered the Capitol, planned their activities,
and stored arms for a second wave should it be necessary. He wrote on an
encrypted site that his followers should prepare for a civil war and even
street fighting. He solicited membership from former members of the military
and police forces. Some of the Oath Keepers had been arrested previously and
charged with obstruction of Congress and destruction of property. Although Rhodes
claimed his group was in Washington to provide security for Roger Stone and
others and did not intend to storm the Capitol, facts from testimony and video
footage have proved otherwise.
According to legal authorities, sedition is a hard charge
to prove in court, but FBI access to encrypted communications and other remarks
from Rhodes might make the case easier this time. The Oath Keepers are only one
of several groups which were involved in activities at the Capitol that day.
Members of the Proud Boys and QAnon have also been arrested. The so-called ‘Shaman’
has already been convicted and sentenced to 41 months in jail for his presence
in the Capitol that day. The rioter who threw a fire extinguisher at police has
received a sentence of five years. So far, 275
of the people arrested that day were charged with obstructing Congress in its
duty to certify the election. The FBI estimates that over 2500 rioters were
involved; so far over 700 have been arrested and charged for misdemeanors and
felonies, but none of the charges have been as serious as the charges against
Rhodes. Several have pleaded guilty to reduced charges and received minor
sentences.
There is a level of anger in this country against our government
that surprises me, but in retrospect, I guess I should not be quite so
surprised. Some of these feelings were stoked by the Great Depression and the
divide between the haves and have-nots. They continued in the McCarthy era when
the educated elites were accused of succumbing to communism and plotting
against the state. The John Birch Society, White Supremacists, and conservative
Barry Goldwater continued to fan the flames for disruption as the Civil Rights
era marches and protests erupted. That brought us to the Vietnam war era, where
the poor boys went to war and the rich ones got deferments for college or fled
to Canada. Then eventually we had the excesses of Nixon and Reagan came in
stating ‘government is the problem’ and more and more Americans became alienated
from the democracy which had kept us together either for better or for worse
since the Civil War. (I know that this is an oversimplification, but I think
you can understand where I am going here. Our history has never been simple and
perceptions often depend upon where one is situated in our society.)
As a Democrat, I worked for President Obamas’ campaign,
applauded his inauguration and the millions who celebrated. I knew it did not
mean that we would now have a color-blind society, but I thought it might mean
we were a few steps closer. I did not count on the haters who could not abide
the idea of an African American in charge of this country. Rhodes has said that
it was the election of Obama that made him start his Oath Keepers group. The
Tea Party was formed by Republicans to oppose everything that Obama wanted to
do. Mitch McConnell followed that line as well and vowed that he would be a
one-term president. He failed in that goal but kept him from naming Merritt
Garland as a justice on faulty claims. The constant drumbeat of conservative talk
radio and other right-wing media outlets against his presidency, many believe,
allowed the rise of the MAGA movement, which profited from hateful speech and
outright lies. These movements deliberately set Americans against each other
and against those who were not members of the white majority. The white
majority was feeling threatened; their dominance was in danger.
Is this the democracy you learned about in school; the
great melting pot which brings people from many countries to become one nation?
Well, truthfully, that was not always the case as immigration was favored for northern
European nations over southern Europe, and quotas were enforced for people from
nations of color more strictly. And, in the years before World War Two, our
government closed its ears to the pleas of Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler for
asylum. Of course, we would allow laborers to come in from Mexico and Central
America to pick our crops, but they, most often, could not remain.
Last week I mentioned some opinions in the New York Times
on the anniversary of January 6th. One, by Rebecca Solnit,
looks at “An Assault on the Truth”. She mentions the birther movement, the lies
about Hillary Clinton and the pizza parlor, and the Sandy Hook massacre false
claims that were believed by so many. She states we used to say that ‘you are
entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts’ but now people believe they
can have their own facts. The public is being presented with false claims akin
to snake oil salesmen of yore by supposedly white Christian men of good
standing who would have you believe that our way of life, religion, education, whatever
is endangered by the upstart other. They tout mysterious conspiracy theories
that the gullible believe and buy into as they barricade their homes from the
caravans of invaders. She also states:
“While Republicans assault
voting rights and the integrity of our elections, what fuels their advances is
the rise of a gullible sector of the public ready to follow their leaders
wherever they go. What’s often described as a weakness of the Democratic Party
— the existence of a variety of views and positions, freely debated or even
fought over, and a restless, questioning electorate — is a strength of democracy.”
She concludes: “Authoritarians
don’t just want to control the government, the economy, and the military. They
want to control the truth. Truth has its own authority, an authority a
strongman must defeat, at least in the minds of his followers, persuading them
to abandon fact, the standards of verification, critical thinking, and all the
rest. Such people become a standing army awaiting their next command.”
Former President Jimmy
Carter also wrote for this special edition and said in a piece titled “Americas’
Democracy is in Danger” that politicians who seek to win by any means and who
are bringing others to think likewise threaten our democracy. Through the
Carter Center, he worked to promote democracy and free and fair elections
across the world. He noted he had hoped that the violence of the insurrection
would shock Americans into addressing the toxic polarization that threatens our
democracy, but has realized that those who continue to spread lies about the
2020 election have overtaken a major political party. He listed five principles
he feels are necessary to preserve our democracy and our freedoms. Some paraphrasing
here...
1. “People of all political stripes must agree on
fundamental constitutional principles and norms of fairness, civility, and respect
for the rule of law.
2. We must push for reforms that ensure the
security and accessibility of our elections and ensure public confidence in the
accuracy of results.
3. We must resist the polarization that is
reshaping our identities around politics....standing up to the forces that
would divide us.
4. Violence has no place in our politics...we must
act urgently to pass laws to reverse the trends of character assassination, intimidation,
and the presence of armed militias at events.
5. Lastly, the spread of disinformation,
especially on social media, must be addressed....these platforms must be
reformed; we stand on the brink of an abyss and are at risk of civil conflict
and the loss of our democracy.”
I will look at the additional essays next week.
However, I urge everyone to consider these serious columns about what keeps us together
and what can rip our country apart if we allow it. We, as a country, not just
as Democrats, must resist these dark forces built on lies and conspiracies and continue
to brandish the truth as it exists. We need to question authority at times, but
we also need to respect the rule of law.
******************************************************************************
A brief report on COVID. Omicron continues to
spread across the country unrestrained, especially among the unvaccinated, inundating
hospitals, many workplaces, and schools. While deaths are not as prevalent as
with Delta, people are still dying in fairly large numbers. There is hope that
some downturns in the northeast may foreshadow a decrease in total case numbers,
which are still horrendous at over 800,000 cases daily. Maryland is showing a slight
dip, which is hopeful; its vaccination rate is now at 72%.
COVID stats: NY Times:
US Total Cases: 65,814,876. New Cases: 801,903.
Total
Deaths: 849,976. New Deaths: 1964.
Maryland Totals: Total Cases: 899,922. New Cases:
9,820.
Total Deaths:12,666. New Deaths: 65.
********************************************************************************
President Biden hit some bumps last week, with
the Supreme Court striking down part of his workplace mandate for vaccinations
or testing (partly because of the ignorance of the justices on viruses and
covid.) Senators Sinema and Manchin think preserving the filibuster in the
Senate is more important than helping the President enact his programs or maybe
it is their egos, who knows? I certainly hope that Majority Leader Schumer has
some rabbits to pull out of his hat. We need voting rights reform more each
day.
Oh, and newly installed Governor Youngkin of Virginia made canceling the mask mandate in Virginia schools, one of his first executive orders. He also chose a former coal lobbyist to be his EPA administrator! ‘Moderate guy’ mask off pretty quick, there, Gov!
Finally, I will close with some notations from an article in the Washington Post Retropolis. It seems a newly elected Republican representative at the State House in Virginia (they know how to pick down there) submitted a bill to ensure that Virginia school children are properly educated and learn “founding principles” which he partly defines as learning about the first debate between Abraham Lincoln and former slave Frederick Douglass. UH OH, the person you might be thinking of, Representative, would be Stephen A. Douglas, a candidate for Senate whom Lincoln ran against and debated in a series of events during the Senate campaign in 1858. Oh, and the rep. also wanted to ban teaching divisive concepts,….has he ever read about the processes involved in the writing of our Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution? Enough!
“Til next week- Peace!
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