I tried. I did , I did. I am weak and I am hooked on Facebook. Perhaps, I can return to the on-line world very carefully. No scrolling anymore. Just an occasional peek? Hahahahahahahah. Best of luck with that. I am so intensely worried about our end of days that I can’t look away. It looks as though Facebook is part of my life until the servers are shut down during the mass rioting, looting and property damage that is coming up in November. Other countries have exploded at election time, happens regularly, has happened before in the U.S. but not like this. Now, a right wing religious organization that has already been involved in voter suppression is training ‘volunteers’ to oversee mail-in voting in the ‘battleground’ states. They are ‘saving the country’ from SATAN. That is unconstitutional. There is, embedded in the U.S. Constituion, a statement that ‘Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion…etc.’ There is, throughout U.S. history, an unwillingness on the part of any Supreme Court (conservative or otherwise) to disregard the founders’ obvious intent to separate state from religion. As far as I know, there are laws in place to prevent the very sort of thing – the vigilantes holding the door closed – that the right wing are now advocating. There are rules about how close to the polls a person can be when they are advocating for a candidate but ‘religious group volunteers’ can be scrutineers? Um…no. Someone, some organization that is not trained and does not have official status (election worker – state official) CANNOT review the documents and may not monitor the mail. Looks like they intend to try no matter what the consequences. It is a dangerous thing to brag about. Trump and his people are guilty of treason in a thousand ways. The end result of all these news stories and threats is that people will be deterred from attending the possible violence at ‘monitored’ polling sites.
The very idea of an evangelist presence at any polling place is chilling. My fear was that this would be the tactic the right wing would employ during the election cycle. They cannot do what they are suggesting but… they are spreading fear so that people won’t bother to vote. I can hardly wait until the lawyers get going on this. I have it half in my mind to return to the U.S., quarantine and then go to monitor the monitors. That’s unwise. Far better to shelter in place, safe in Canada (although only safe for the time being, I understand there is a serious problem of far-right activity amongst the Canadian Forces. So much so that I believe our elected government to be at serious risk. That is a whole ‘nother blog.).
All of this would be no problem excepting that I am an out gay man with socially liberal politics. I haven’t been shy about saying so. That becomes a problem. They know where I am, who I am and I am the one they are shooting at. Conservative politics and church rhetoric has either not been kind to me or has stood silently by and allowed the unkindness. Since none of my readers or my people have any right-wing bent whatsoever, you my friends, are in the cross – hairs of this ‘new populism’ with me. The educated folks I know are state enemies as far as the right wing is concerned. The artists, the teachers, the readers of books and the thinkers for themselves are all on the crap list with me. Those banging the drums are familiar. They are our former neighbours and friends, our former community. They are the people we thought we could trust. Maybe, they ate too many twinkies and watched too much ‘Judge Judy’ or ‘Maury Povich’ or ‘Survivor’. Maybe, they went to the local ‘mega-church’ and fed millions into the coffers of hate. They didn’t realize they were doing it, they are reasonably innocent. The problem is: They don’t stop. The problem is: The problem is….. how do we stop them from destroying us all?
Robert On The Air 