Democracy Out Loud #431: Focus
Our most important task for the next month is becoming clear now.
First, an update on the plan for the NC General Assembly tomorrow, Wednesday. We do not plan to be there in the morning - but if you possibly can, please try to pack the gallery in the afternoon. We think the session will start around 1 pm, and the dreaded HB 171, the anti-DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion) bill is on the House calendar for that time. It is deceptively called, “Equality in State Agencies.” What it really does is cement white supremacy in place and take the state backwards.
Our amazing Legislative Response Team spoke against NINE bills in committee at the NC General Assembly today! They were terrible bills which could, if passed, erode the human rights of trans people, immigrants, homeless people, and more. HB 171 is one of the worst of all, and we had hoped so much it would not come to the floor again. We helped to pack the gallery twice already for this particular bill, and it was tabled. Come if you can to the legislature tomorrow, and let’s try to block it once and for all. The NC Democrats have put out a mobilize link. (If all this is new to you, this document by Elena tells you everything you need to know about the NCGA. Email us if you have questions.)
Something has shifted on the federal level. Illinois Governor Jay Spritzer’s fiery speech is one clue, and Bishop Barber has mapped a clear path forward. Bishop Barber is showing us that we must fight the proposed federal budget now, and he is showing us how to do it.
In “We Must Arrest the Attention of the Nation,” his account of his arrest yesterday in the US Capitol rotunda and why he took that risk, he says, “We willingly and nonviolently submitted to arrest rather than cease our prayer not because we wanted to be arrested, but because we know that now is the time to arrest the attention of this nation.
“Now is not the time to shrink back in fear. Now is the time to courageously join our voices in a general lament for the cruelty we are witnessing in the hope that a new movement of love and justice and truth is already rising to overcome it.
“No one would be fighting this hard to pass a budget that is so extreme if they were not afraid. The extreme minority of elites promoting this disastrous budget understand the potential power of a coalition of people coming together across race and region, across faiths and family traditions, to build an America that works for all of us. In fact, they may understand better than many of us do how much power we have.”
Remember: the President can’t do the things he wants to do without funding, and courts have told him he can’t cut things already funded. We must aim our energy at Congress and right now, at this proposed budget.
The two things we must do now about this budget are to educate ourselves about it and call our Senators and Representatives every single day about why they must vote against this evil legislation. Both the House and Senate are hashing out their versions in the next month. Here is a tool to help you make these calls, and here is research that tells us everything we need to know about this budget.
No one is asking you to risk arrest - yet. But it is time to lean into this. 800 people a day in this country already die of poverty, and if this budget passes as it is proposed, there will be far more money for bombs and deportation than there is now, and far less money for healthcare, food, and so much else which is currently saving lives.
Much gratitude to you for reading this, and for doing whatever you are able to do.
love, Karen
“Hitler didn’t steal the power, his people voted for him, and then he destroyed his people.” Pope Francis
There are men who fa&fo this bathroom bs was just that BS! They're MAGAnuts Bamboozled by Demogogues🤦🏽♀️
Worst is yet to come. Donald "The Beast" Trump is building a wall once again. Colossal tariff wall that is the beginning of the end for the system of down. At first the beast will pull the plug out of the global economy. The worst financial crisis of human history will pull a swarm of the banks underwater and the bank run begins. Then the beast will collapse a mountain of debt shattering the backbone of the monetary system causing a systemic risk to realize. Finally the beast will cast American citizens into a system slavery under the name of Ronald Wilson Reagan, just to "honor his legacy" count the number. After the destruction a new world order will be established in the US. And the Golden Age begins from the ruins of the world wide collapse. All of the system slaves will love it. No more cash - just digital transactions. No more traditional criminal activity. No more tax evasion. No more transactions without the "all seeing eye". Outcasts will hate the world without freedom, hope and privacy. To cover up the mess and distract the public by smoke and mirrors, the beast will engage in a war with Iran. Lies and deceit, corruption and decay, dancing on the graves will continue. Until; Black hole sun, won't you come, won't you come... I want to play a game. Time has come to opt out of the empire of filth. Live or die...