Category: Civil Rights

Welcome To MLK Weekend

The Daily Escape:

Housatonic River, near Appalachian Trail, Bulls Bridge, CT – January 2024 photo by Jane Haslam

We’re into the MLK, Jr. holiday weekend, during which Wrongo, Ms. Right and our extended families and friends are gathering to observe Wrongo’s 80th birthday which occurred late last year. That means this column will be brief but paradoxically, unfocused.

In addition to MLK’s birthday, is anyone else worried about the expansion of the Israel/Hamas war into the Red Sea? From NBC:

“The United States and Britain launched military strikes against the Houthi rebels in Yemen on Thursday, after weeks of mounting attacks (on commercial shipping) by the Iran-backed militant group in the Red Sea.

The strikes, carried out from land and sea, threatened an expansion of the conflict in the Middle East beyond Israel’s war in Gaza — an escalation the Biden administration and its allies have been working to avoid.”

Nothing about this should be surprising. Houthi leadership have been near-begging for airstrikes against them for the last month, given their continued attacks on international ships attempting to use the Red Sea to transit the Suez Canal.

The reaction so far has been as expected. The Houthis have pledged retribution. Pro-Palestinians claim this is the start of WWIII. Some Republicans in Congress say this strike is not authorized, but Wrongo isn’t sure that was necessary.

Anyone who looks at America’s history with cruise and tomahawk missile attacks knows that they are not particularly effective at taking out land-based military installations. It doesn’t seem particularly likely that these strikes will either prevent or deter attacks on shipping in the Red Sea. But it also doesn’t seem likely to escalate things much beyond where we are right now.

America’s military often says “something must be done, and this is something”, and this seems to be another example. And the alternative of confining ourselves only to defensive responses may not have been any better.

Either way, we seem to be looking at a larger and more long-term military presence in the Red Sea. If the Houthi leadership wants to be part of the Israel/Hamas war, then they’re going to be a part of it. Whether the Houthis benefactor Iran wants them to attack global shipping companies is an unanswered question for now.

Is the Iranian leadership about to start a war? The real question is with whom? Iran has a very highly educated population and a diaspora of people waiting to help push the theocrats out if those theocrats slip up. Iran’s options (in a war) would be the many countries that they share land borders with. Those are Russia, Afghanistan, Iraq (who they fought with for 10 years), Turkmenistan, and Pakistan, (a nuclear power). Also Turkey, (in NATO), Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Among countries they don’t share a land border with, are the Saudis or Israel or US, all of which would likely result in Iran getting at least some of the shit bombed out of them. So a war started by Iran seems unlikely, but “Houthis disrupt global shipping from Yemen” was not on Wrongo’s 2024 bingo card, and it’s still January

Since it’s Saturday, let’s close with a musical statement that echoes MLK’s enduring message. Watch and listen to “Keep Your Eyes On The Prize“, a folk song from the American civil rights movement.

The song was composed as a hymn before World War I, but the lyrics in this version were written by civil rights activist Alice Wine in 1956. It is based on the traditional song, “Gospel Plow”, which is also known as “Hold On”, and “Keep Your Hand On The Plow”.

In this version from 2006, Bruce Springsteen starts on vocals, but when Marc Anthony Thompson (with hat) joins him, it becomes a great soul-stirring anthem. Thus, an instructional guide for all of us:

Sample lyrics:

Paul and Silas bound in jail
Had no money to go their bail
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

 Paul and Silas thought they were lost
Dungeon shook and the chains come off
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

Freedom’s name is mighty sweet
And soon we’re gonna meet
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

I got my hand on the gospel plow
Won’t take nothing for my journey now
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

The only chain that a man can stand
Is the chain of hand on hand
Keep your eyes on the prize
Hold on

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You Say You Want A Revolution

The Daily Escape:

17 Palms Oasis, Anza-Borrego SP, CA – June 2023 photo by Paulette Donnellon. When Wrongo and Ms. Right lived in LA, we hiked to this spot twice with grandkids.

This year, the Fourth of July just won’t let go of Wrongo. Political historian Eli Merritt has an op-ed in the LA Times: The Fourth of July is all about America’s first principle — the right of revolution:

“This right of resistance against inequality and tyranny is the American way. It is the essence of the American experiment, beginning in the 1760s and 1770s with the colonists’ defiance of the Stamp Act, the Townshend Acts, the Tea Act and the Intolerable Acts; and in the 19th and 20th centuries with the abolitionist movement, women’s suffrage movement, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th, 14th, 15th, and 19th amendments, and the civil rights movement; and today with nonviolent fights for racial justice, equal voting rights, LGBTQ+ rights and women’s reproductive rights.”

We’re a country born of revolution. But after the Jan 6 insurrection, people are probably put off by the very idea of it. It’s what Trump’s seditionists did when they stormed the Capitol. Their goal was to prevent, or at least to obstruct, the certification of the 2020 presidential election.

And they did so by summoning the spirit of 1776. But in contrast to the J6 “protesters”, the people who approved the Declaration signed their names to a document. They didn’t wear hoods, masks, or camo gear and beat up people. The country’s “revolution” began with paper, pen and ink, with “revolutionaries” plainly identifying themselves. As Merritt points out:

“…the Declaration of Independence is a nonviolent manifesto. It makes no mention of swords, guns or war. Separately, the Continental Congress called upon American patriots to arm themselves, yet only in self-defense of God-given natural rights.”

Yet here we are in 2023, facing once again a fight for rights that we had already won, says The Guardian’s Rebecca Solnit: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The first thing to remember about the damage done by the US supreme court this June and the June before is that each majority decision overturns a right that we had won…. What this means is that the right wing of the US supreme court is part of a gang of reactionaries engaging in backlash.”

In the 303 Creative v. Elenis case, the Supreme Court made a decision based on nothing, in which a woman refuses to perform a service she didn’t provide, to a gay couple that didn’t exist, in the name of religious “liberty.” That six Supremes jumped on this case is a travesty. We either back down and accept the direction these extreme Justices are pushing the country toward, or we fight.

Wrongo wants to fight, just like he did in the 1960s. It won’t be easy to win these rights back, but it isn’t impossible. And this from WaPo’s Jennifer Rubin:

“On…Independence Day, which celebrates rebellion against a monarch lacking consent of the governed, it behooves us to dedicate ourselves to robust and authentic democracy: government of the people, by the people, for the people — not by arrogant right-wing justices.”

The Supreme Court is the point of the American Conservative movement’s spear, and it must be our goal to blunt their extremisim. The ballot box is our only way out of this mess, so it will take an immense amount of organizing and effort to overcome the gerrymandering, active voter suppression and massive disinformation campaigns conducted by the media.

The current SCOTUS cannot change our beliefs and values. These rights are ours, regardless of what six Supremes say. From Solnit:

“If you didn’t believe that equal access and rights were wrong yesterday…you don’t have to believe it now. Not just because those rights were denied by six justices….”

The country is on our side. Gallup has a new poll of approve/disapprove of the Supreme Court:

This shows that the people  agree with blunting the power of today’s Supreme Court. The final words go to Solnit:

“…history shows us that when we come together with ferocious commitment to a shared goal we can be more powerful than institutions and governments. The right would like us to feel defeated and powerless. We can feel devastated and still feel powerful or find our power. This is not a time to quit. It’s a time to fight.”

We must take every available measure in our democracy to revoke consent and remedy these unconstitutional decisions. It will require active engagement in all levels of the democratic political process, from local school boards to the presidency. We can’t take any political office for granted.

Help new voters obtain ID and register to vote. Educate yourself about the candidates, vote in the primaries. Get your friends and families to vote. Make sure no seat goes uncontested wherever a GOP politician holds office or runs without opposition.

Above all, do not let them assume that you consent to the loss of our rights.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – July 2, 2023

We’re back from our Alaska vacation. It was extended two extra days in Seattle courtesy of United Airlines, who cancelled our flight, along with thousands of others. To add to United’s bad press, its CEO, Scott Kirby took a private plane out of New York while so many of his customers were grabbing hotel rooms they didn’t want, instead of sleeping in their own beds.

Wrongo promised more photos from Alaska:

June 2023 iPhone photo by Wrongo

This iceberg broke off from the Shakes Glacier, which is located in the Stikine-LeConte Wilderness of the Tongass National Forest. It stood about 20’ above the waterline. Since about 10% of a berg is above water, about 220’ of this bad boy was underwater in Shakes Lake which is about 800′ deep. We rode in a jetboat about 25 miles from Wrangell, Alaska to see it.

This week’s cartoons are about the recent decisions by the Supreme Court. SCOTUS released opinions in three big cases, the affirmative action case, the student loan forgiveness case, and the anti-LGBT+ case. Wrongo hasn’t had time to read them carefully, but the dissents by Justices Kagan, Sotomayor and Jackson made it clear that these decisions suck.

These cases show us a few things: First, that the concept of “standing” before the court means only what the Supremes say it means. Previously, It was about where the parties in a lawsuit “stand” in relation to each other. Back in the recent past, a party had to prove they had standing before a court considers the merits of a case. But:

  • In the gay website case, the plaintiff trying to inflict damage on the LGBT+ community didn’t need to show standing. The Colorado web designer, who the Supremes said could refuse to make wedding websites for gay couples, cited a request from a man who told the AP, he had never asked her to do any work for him. The state of Colorado said she didn’t have sufficient grounds to sue, but the Supremes ultimately said that she did.
  • In Biden vs. Nebraska, the plaintiffs in the student loan case couldn’t show injury. The Supremes said that the plaintiff, the state of Missouri, had standing because Mohela a student loan servicer, is an instrumentality of the state. Mohela has the independent power to sue and be sued, but it refused to sue in this case, and the state sued on its behalf. Justice Kagan in her dissent said:

“From the first page to the last, today’s opinion departs from the demands of judicial restraint…At the behest of a party that has suffered no injury, the majority decides a contested public policy issue properly belonging to the politically accountable branches and the people they represent.”

Second, we’ve learned that the 14th Amendment, which was originally written to insure that Black people had Constitutional rights, no longer applies to them. Now that the Conservative majority on the Court has ended racism, maybe we’ll get a new holiday to celebrate!

Third, this is what happens when a third of America doesn’t vote. In 2016, we were told to elect Hillary because of the Supreme Court, but America didn’t like the “mean” lady, and Trump was elected. Despite what you thought about her, this growing list of Supreme Court decisions that so many people disagree with are a direct result of that loss.

There are two kinds of freedom: Freedom to, and freedom from. But your freedom isn’t supposed to hurt anybody else. And historically when it did, we enacted laws curtailing that behavior, but no longer. Now, we’re out there all on our own.

Society is moving backwards. Wrongo grew up in the 1960s, those good old days when politicians and the courts strived to promote equality. Now society’s divided. Its coarser, and much less equal. “It’s on you to bootstrap your way to the top” is what the Supreme Court is telling us. We’re born and after that, you’re on your own. However your life plays out, it’s your fault. On to cartoons.

No ladder required:

SCOTUS suggestion for getting ahead:

A case of blind justice:

Blinded by the White:

Some of the Supremes’ action is definitely affirmative:

OTOH, the Supremes overruled the independent legislature theory:

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Monday Wake Up Call, North Carolina Edition – March 6, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Early blooming Bradford Pear trees, near Cana, VA – March 2023 photo by Lee Ogle

North Carolina is in today’s news for two reasons: First, North Carolina Republicans, who control the state legislature, announced a deal to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. North Carolina would be the 40th state to expand Medicaid after a decade of Republican resistance.

From the WaPo:

“The deal marks a stark turnaround for Republican leaders that played out over years in North Carolina and in states across the country, as more and more governors and legislatures expanded Medicaid to low-income residents.”

NC’s governor, Democrat Roy Moore will sign the bill if it gets to his desk. Passage would extend Medicaid coverage to 600,000 of the state’s poor citizens. Dozens of rural hospitals in NC closed during Covid, so maybe it dawned on NC’s Republican Party that dead constituents have a difficult time voting for them.

As with other states, this will allow North Carolina, at no cost to the state government, to give health insurance to the state’s working poor. The federal government will pay for 90% of the cost, and the rest will be covered by a new tax on hospitals and insurance companies.

Wrongo wrote about how the Medicaid expansion was a great source of revenue to state governments here. The NC House Speaker, Republican Tim Moore said that since the federal government will pay North Carolina a $1.8 billion bonus if expansion passes, the GOP was motivated to sign on.

The extra money is part of the 2021 stimulus package signed into law by Biden, that offered signing bonuses to states that expanded Medicaid. In NC’s case, $1.8 billion. Biden reacted:

“This is what I’m talking about….That’ll be 40 states who’ve expanded. 10 more to go.”

It’s doubtful that any other states will sign on this year.

Shouldn’t Red states be taking care of their residents? Instead of wasting time with anti-trans bills and anti-woke bullshit? But that’s too much to expect.

A second North Carolina story involves a case in front of the US Supreme Court, Moore vs. Harper. Last fall the Supremes heard this case about the “Independent State Legislature Theory“. The case started out as a challenge to a Republican-gerrymandered voting map that the NC Supreme Court ruled was unconstitutionally partisan.

NC’s GOP then appealed to the US Supreme Court, arguing that the Constitution’s election clause gives state legislatures freedom to do whatever they decide about their own elections, and that no court can intervene in that. A decision was expected in June, 2023.

But the Supremes may not get a chance to weigh in, since the case is back before the NC high court. Why you ask? Well the NC Supreme Court is elected. And in November, the Republicans won a majority of the seats on the court.

Unsurprisingly, the court decided to review two cases that were decided against Republicans. What’s remarkable is the extent to which NC Republicans are willing to go in order to take control over the outcome of elections away from voters. And they’re not even trying to be covert about it.

On February 3, the NC Supreme Court granted a petition to rehear the case. That means the state supreme court may reconsider a case that is already in front of the US Supreme Court.

On March 2, the US Supreme Court asked for a supplemental briefing. They’re asking the NC Republicans, (the plaintiffs that originally challenged the maps), and the Biden administration to submit supplemental briefings about what effects the state court’s reconsideration might have on the Supreme Court’s ultimate decision.

So the legal jousting about voting rights in North Carolina continues. Maybe the state’s decision to embrace Medicare expansion after a decade means that we simply have to wait for the GOP to come around to an idea that most Americans favor. In the case of voting rights, Wrongo suggests continuing the fight, not waiting.

Time to wake up America! The Biden administration won’t be sending free money to the states to get them to embrace universal voting rights. That may have worked with Medicare, but not with voting rights.

To help you wake up, watch, and listen to Roy Rogers play “Walkin Blues” from his video “Slide Guitar For Rock & Blues” on a 12 string resonator guitar. Rogers makes it his own, and the playing and vocals are terrific:

This is dedicated to our friend Rene S, who also plays a mean guitar. “Walkin Blues” is a blues standard that’s been recorded countless times, often with different lyrics. Son House, Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Eric Clapton and the Grateful Dead all have their own versions.

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Monday Wake Up Call – February 20, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Oatman, AZ on Route 66 – February 2023 photo by Laurel Anne Lindsay

Some of you may have heard about a study called “The Hidden Tribes of America” by the group More in Common. It’s trying to understand the forces driving political polarization in America today. They classify the American electorate into seven distinct groups, they call “Tribes”.

But their key conclusion is that most people don’t belong on the far left or far right: (brackets by Wrongo)

“…the largest group that we uncovered in our research has so far been largely overlooked. It is a group of Americans we call the Exhausted Majority…representing a two-thirds majority of Americans, who aren’t part of the Wings….most members of the Exhausted Majority aren’t [simply] political centrists or moderates. On specific issues, their views range across the spectrum.”

More:

“But while they hold a variety of views, the members of the Exhausted Majority are also united in important ways: They are fed up with the polarization plaguing American government and society….. [they] are so frustrated with the bitter polarization of our politics that many have checked out completely….. they aren’t ideologues who dismiss as evil or ignorant the people who don’t share their exact political views. They want to talk and to find a path forward.

This chart from the study graphically illustrates the seven tribal groups of the American populace. As you can see, there is a left-wing group that is about 8% of the US population. And there are two right-wing groups that equal about 25% of Americans. That leaves four groups in what the authors call the “Exhausted Majority”. They are 67% of the American populace.

Here are some demographic characteristics of the seven groups:

  • Progressive Activists: younger, highly engaged, secular, cosmopolitan, angry.
  • Traditional Liberals: older, retired, open to compromise, rational, cautious.
  • Passive Liberals: unhappy, insecure, distrustful, disillusioned.
  • Politically Disengaged: young, low income, distrustful, detached, patriotic,
  • Moderates: engaged, civic-minded, middle-of-the-road, pessimistic, Protestant.
  • Traditional Conservatives: religious, middle class, patriotic, moralistic.
  • Devoted Conservatives: white, retired, highly engaged, uncompromising,

Wrongo identifies as one of the Traditional Liberals, their description rings true.

The authors say that in their research, this tribal membership predicted differences in Americans’ views on various political issues better than demographic, ideological, and partisan groupings. You can read or download the whole study here.

An “Exhausted Majority” may be a positive political development. Wrongo spends nearly every day thinking that there are just two opposing camps. And that they each view each other with fear and loathing, refusing to listen to anything that doesn’t fit their existing narrative. As we’re entering the next presidential campaign, it’s good to know that Wrongo’s view of our polarization might be well, wrong.

Is the “Exhausted Majority” merely a new response to our dysfunctional politics? Wrongo isn’t alone in thinking that what’s wrong with our country will take decades to overcome. Faced with that, people start to look for quick fixes, or a way to stop listening to the wrangling. And you don’t have to be unaligned with either Party to share this sense of exasperation.

The people described in the “Exhausted Majority” are similar. It’s also true that for most people, politics isn’t the be-all-end-all of their lives. They’d prefer that the business of government didn’t require their involvement. They’re trying to get their kids educated, and to keep them safe. They prefer to see political compromise happen without needing to be involved.

But if you can walk away from politics when it frustrates you, then you’re in the lucky minority:

  • There are large numbers of parents who have discovered that their child is addicted to opioids.
  • There are many people who had lost their health insurance when they were laid off.
  • Many sent their daughter to college in the South only to learn that she no longer has any reproductive rights.
  • Many are worried that books are being taken from public school libraries.
  • Some fear that they may lose the right to vote.

These people can’t simply throw up their hands and walk away. Only political action will help them. We all know that the political radicals are irredeemable. We also know they make the most noise, but they’re a minority.

The fed-up people on both sides and in the middle have to find a way to take the country back from the radicals, instead of allowing ourselves to be herded into existing opposing camps.

Time to wake up America! We can’t simply drop out. There’s too much at stake. Democrats need to find candidates and a message that can motivate an additional 5%-15% of the “Exhausted Majority” to vote with them. To help you wake up, watch, and listen to the RedMolly band play a very nice cover of Richard Thompson’s “Vincent Black Lightning 1952”. It’s a surprise how beautifully it adapts to a bluegrass idiom, and the dobro work makes it:

“Vincent Black Lightning” is one of the most perfect songs ever written. We saw Thompson perform it live at Tanglewood last summer.

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Monday Wake Up Call – January 30, 2023

The Daily Escape:

Late afternoon, Mt. Baker, WA – January 2023 photo by jsmooth

Let’s take on a few key questions raised by the death of Tyre Nichols at the hands of the Memphis police. Wrongo’s primary question is: “Is the life of a police officer worth more than the life of any other citizen?”

Police in the US are trained to see every interaction with the citizens that they are sworn to “protect and serve” as a potentially life-threatening situation. Their primary concern is to go home at the end of their shift, healthy and in one piece.

That level of fear encourages aggression. All police have heard stories of other officers shot as they approached a car, So they often are as tense as a solider in a warzone. And in an America that’s drowning in guns, that fear is well-placed.

When there’s a confrontation with a suspect, police culture focuses the cop on making the suspect comply with the cop’s initial order. And police culture tilts toward the use of physical force when compliance isn’t immediate.

Police culture is based in male bonding, and in an “us vs. them” mentality. Police culture brings with it a code of silence to protect even wrongdoers. Finally, police culture is reinforced by local police unions that are led by mostly older white men, who oppose any progressive change.

A second question is: “Where should we assign blame for continued police violence?” Sherrilyn Ifill’s newsletter has useful context. She asks if the failure of white people to effectively confront and contain the violence by white cops against Black people should be considered as a failure of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, as some pundits suggested this week.

She disagrees. You can read her piece here.

The BLM movement helped white Americans understand what systemic racism meant. It showed America how it impacted people’s lives through violence by police throughout the US. But to ask a Black political movement to change police culture which tilts conservative, White and military, places the burden on the wrong political organization. The correct place for managing this change is local city governments and their citizens. They need to take on the task of creating true civilian control over their local police forces.

The fact that the five officers charged in Nichols’s murder are Black complicates discussion of the role of race in policing. We’re used to cases involving White officers and Black victims. But this case makes it clear that there’s a larger issue at work: an entrenched police culture of aggression and dehumanization of Black people. It is as much the system and its tactics that fosters violence, as it is the racial identity of the officers involved in the brutality.

The NYT quotes Professor Jody Armour, a University of Southern California law professor:

“It’s not just a Black and white issue, but a Black and blue one. And when you put on that blue uniform, it often becomes the primary identity that drowns out any other identities that might compete with it.”

After the George Floyd killing by cops in 2020, Americans realized that police violence was a national and possibly an intractable problem. Various US states approved nearly 300 police reform bills after Floyd’s murder, creating civilian oversight of police, more anti-bias training, stricter use-of-force limits, and alternatives to arrests in cases involving people with mental illnesses, according to a recent analysis by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism.

But as the NYT’s Charles Blow says, America caught Covid and then simply walked away before the work was done:

“Too many liberal politicians showed us that their commitment to legislation, and even language, to protect Black lives from police violence was polling dependent….They ran scared of being labeled woke or of supporting a “defund the police” ideology.”

More:

“Police unions also learned a lesson: that they could survive the most intense and coordinated denunciation of their practices they had ever faced and still dodge federal legislation to address the violence that happens on their watch.”

We like to say, “this isn’t who we are.” The evidence, though, is that this is exactly who we are.

Time to wake up America! Let’s ask why police lives should be worth more to our community than the lives of those they are sworn to protect.

To help you wake up, listen to the late Tom Verlaine of the band Television who died last week. Television’s first two albums, “Marquee Moon”, and “Adventure” were critical successes but didn’t sell. “Marquee Moon” is considered one of the defining releases of the punk era.

Wrongo and Ms. Right lived in a loft in lower Manhattan in the very late 1970s – early 1980s. Wrongo occasionally went to CBGBs, then the mecca of punk rock. Once, we had the Dead Boys entertain at a party at our lakeside weekend place. It’s tough to think that the icons of early punk music are now in their 70s.

There aren’t many videos of Television performing live. But here they are doing “Foxhole” from their album “Adventure”, at the UK’s Old Grey Whistle Test in 1978:

The band included Verlaine, Richard Lloyd, and Fred Smith on guitar, with Billy Ficca on drums.

Sample Lyrics:

You show me the war but the war’s such a bore.
In the line of duty, in the line of fire
A heartless heart is my proper attire.

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Sunday Cartoon Blogging – January 29, 2023

By now, everyone has heard about the killing of Tyre Nichols at the hands of five former Memphis police officers. Some of you may have also viewed the video of Nichols’s beating by those officers. We won’t be linking to it on this blog, ever.

Wrongo will have more to say about this during the week. But for now let’s understand that this is due in large part to the US failing to get police reform.  There was a comprehensive package of legal reforms, called the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act that passed the House in 2021 but could not break the Senate filibuster. On to cartoons.

Never forget that there are two Americas:

Congress is useless:

What we should mean when we say “Everything everywhere”:

What threatens school kids more?

Soon it will be on milk cartons:

Making good news into Fox News:

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Monday Wake Up Call, MLK Jr Day – January 16, 2023

The Daily Escape:

It’s MLK day, so let’s talk about a topic that was near to his heart: economic inequality. Since 1980, economic inequality has been increasing between the top 1% and the bottom 90% of Americans. It’s become so great that today, America now faces the same level of economic inequality that existed before the Great Depression.

Here’s a chart from Elise Gould and Jori Sandra of the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) showing the percentage change in annual wages by income group for the last 40 years:

From the EPI article: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“The level of earnings inequality that existed in 1979 could have simply continued…to today. Instead, we have seen a growing concentration of earnings at the…very top of the earnings distribution, while the bottom 90% has experienced meager gains. Wages for the top 1% grew more than seven times fast as wages for the bottom 90% between 1979 and 2021. The top 1% now amasses a record share of total earnings, while the bottom 90% share of earnings has hit a historic low.”

Slow growth in real (inflation-adjusted) hourly wages for the vast majority of workers has been a defining feature of the US labor market for most of the last 40 years. Only for about 10 years after 1979 did workers see consistent positive wage growth: in the tight labor market of the late 1990s and in the five years prior to the pre-pandemic labor market peak in 2019.

While some low-wage workers have experienced high wage gains after America reopened from Covid, the truth is that most haven’t even kept pace with where they were in 1979.

Today is Martin Luther King Day in America. We mostly celebrate Dr. King’s birth rather than acknowledging what he was arguing for when he was killed. His focus at the end was on both economic justice, and voting rights. Perhaps more than any other leader in American history, King could see the different strands of political and social injustice. He was able to tie them together to form a coherent narrative, one that was capable of leveraging dissent for concrete policy change.

Those were the enduring lessons of Dr. King’s life.

There’s less than three months between the observance of King’s birthday and his death. The way each is recognized by politicians reveals the contradictions in his legacy. Most politicians extol the virtues of racial equality, while most ignore King’s criticisms of economic injustice.

From his April 30th speech in Atlanta: (emphasis by the Wrongologist)

“A true revolution of values will…look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth with righteous indignation. It will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa, and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say, ‘This is not just’…this business of…injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane….cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense
than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”

As the EPI report above shows, over the last four decades, policies promoted by the GOP have reduced the opportunities for most workers to achieve wage growth at rate similar to the top 10%.

Time to wake up America! Develop your narrative, one that fights against economic injustice and for voting rights. Add any other issues that are pertinent to you. Take your narrative to your neighbors. Then work to get out the vote.

To help you wake up, watch “People Get Ready”, a Curtis Mayfield tune that foretold the turning tide in the battle for racial equality. It topped the R&B charts after its 1965 release by The Impressions. It’s been covered by scores of artists, including Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and by Rod Stewart and the late Jeff Beck, who died last week. Early in their careers, in 1969, Beck and Stewart performed together in the Jeff Beck Group. Here’s Beck’s official music video for “People Get Ready” featuring Rod Stewart:

Jeff Beck was one of one as a guitarist. There was no one better. He had the mindset of a jazz musician playing blues rock. His guitar sound wasn’t anything like traditional jazz guitar. He didn’t cut his teeth playing the old jazz standards, but he could improvise something fresh every time. OTOH, Wrongo didn’t love Beck the recording artist.

Rod Stewart has a secret hobby; he builds model trains. He would take his trains on tour with him, requesting an extra room so he could work on them while staying in hotels. Stewart recently unveiled his 1,500 square-foot replica of post-war Chicago and New York railway systems that took him 23 years to build.

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Monday Wake Up Call, Abortion Editon – July 18, 2022

The Daily Escape:

Barn with cotton candy clouds, Allegre, KY – July 2022 photo by Fuller Perspective Photography

The Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe has opened a Pandora’s Box of ethical and legal issues. The infamous story about the pregnant 10 year-old Ohio rape victim who was forced to travel to Indiana to receive an abortion is the best example. It was reported in the Indianapolis Star on July 1.

After the Dobbs decision, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine (R) had issued an executive order putting in force a 2019 law that had banned nearly all abortions after six weeks of pregnancy. The 10-year-old was reportedly six weeks and three days pregnant.

Then we saw a Right-wing smear campaign:

  • A WSJ editorial called the Indianapolis Star’s report a “fanciful tale“, and claimed that there is “no evidence the girl exists.”
  • Tucker Carlson said that the story of the 10-year-old girl who had to travel to Indiana to get an abortion was “not true.”
  • Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost said in an interview with USA Today, that the story was likely a “fabrication.”
  • The New York Post, which, like Fox News and the WSJ, is owned by Rupert Murdoch, published an opinion piece by law professor Jonathan Turley under the headline “Activist tale of 10-year-old rape victim’s abortion looks like a lie.”

All of those shouts and murmurs soon disappeared when a 27-year-old man from Columbus, Ohio, Gershon Fuentes, was arrested and charged with impregnating the 10-year-old Ohio girl. Apparently, Fuentes “confessed to raping the child on at least two occasions.”

Subsequently,  the WSJ recanted and published a different editorial correcting the record. Why would they accuse the Star of fabricating a story? From Judd Legum: (emphasis by Wrongo)

“There is a reason why so many people, particularly on the right, were eager to push the idea that Bernard’s story was a lie. If they acknowledged the story was true they would have to answer this question: Do you believe that a 10-year-old rape victim should be forced to give birth?”

By the way, Covid appears to have increased early-onset puberty around the world. Getting your period “early” now means when you’re younger than 8. People who think a pregnant 10-year-old strains credulity should bear this in mind.

The Nieman Lab, a Harvard-based group focused on journalism on the Internet, took the WaPo’s Glenn Kessler, author of their “Fact Checker” column to task for not checking his facts about the Star’s reporting. One of Kessler’s so-called “facts” was: (brackets by Wrongo)

“An abortion by a 10-year-old is pretty rare,” Kessler notes…..[but] The Columbus Dispatch reported that in 2020, 52 people under the age of 15 received an abortion in Ohio.”

Your mileage may vary, but if one under-15-year-old gets an abortion every week in Ohio, it can’t be thought of as “pretty rare”. The press needs to wise up and get the data before diving headfirst to a conclusion.

There are other ways the Dobbs decision will impact lives. Unsure doctors in Texas are already turning away ectopic pregnancies, fearing legal liability. According to The Lily (a WaPo newsletter):

“…a South Texas woman diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy was refused an abortion by her doctor…..she was advised to seek help out of state.”

Under the unclear Texas law, a doctor who removes an ectopic pregnancy that is not actively causing the patient to bleed to death may face legal consequences.

It doesn’t end there. The laws surrounding in vitro fertilization (IVF) could also be facing threats of lawsuits even though these women aren’t seeking abortions. Slate reports:

“Fertilizing eggs in a Petri dish often results in extra embryos, which are usually frozen….Leftover embryos are frequently discarded or donated to research….In some abortion-restrictive states, this may no longer be possible. Louisiana defines “a viable in vitro fertilized human ovum” as a “juridical person which shall not be intentionally destroyed,” and at least five states have introduced bills establishing fetal personhood.”

States probably won’t ban IVF outright, but as some countries have done, they may limit the number of embryos that can be created in an effort to prevent embryo destruction. All of this would make IVF far more difficult and expensive than it is, and it could possibly reduce the number of IVF clinics in those states.

This is the tip of the iceberg of the issues women will have post-Dobbs. Technology will always be ahead of our laws and ethics. Just as will some men’s (and religions’) need to control women.

Time to wake up America! Elect a filibuster-proof Senate this fall. To help you wake up listen to Willie Nile, perform his ode to Covid, “The Day the Earth Stood Still”:

Sample lyric (that could be about the end of Roe instead of Covid)

So if you feel some heartache
And if you feel some pain
And if you see some lonely soul
Standing in the pouring rain
Offer up some kindness
Compassion if you will
And remember well the way it was
The day the earth stood still

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More Rights May Be Flushed By The Supremes

The Daily Escape:

Denali from Byers Lake, AK – June 2022 photo by Todd Salat

In his concurring opinion to the decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, that dismantled Roe, Justice Thomas basically begged Red states to send the Court more culture war cases that they could dismantle.

The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas GOP AG Ken Paxton is ready to do just that:

“Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton last week seemingly expressed support for the Supreme Court potentially overturning past rulings on cases involving the LGBTQ community following the downfall of Roe v. Wade on Friday.”

Paxton, in an interview, said he would support the Supreme Court revisiting the cases mentioned in Thomas’ concurring opinion. Here are the decisions Thomas would like a shot at overturning:

He questioned a number of earlier Court rulings, including Obergefell v. Hodges, which established the right of same-sex couples to marry, and Lawrence vs. Texas—a 2003 decision in which the court ruled against the state of Texas regarding its 1973 law criminalizing the act of sodomy.

Thomas also mentioned Griswold v. Connecticut, which established the right of married couples to use contraception without government interference:

“In future cases, we should reconsider all of this Court’s substantive due process precedents, including Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell….We have a duty to ‘correct the error’ regarding these established in those precedents.”

For those who don’t fully understand legal shorthand, the judicial theory Thomas is pursuing is that these issues should be in the hands of state legislatures, and not be decided by the courts.

Conservatives in other states have also expressed support for Thomas’s opinion, including Utah Senate President Stuart Adams, who said he would support the Supreme Court reconsidering same-sex marriage. Utah’s constitutional ban on same-sex unions still exists and could be reinstated if the high court were to overturn its earlier decision.

We shouldn’t forget that Obergefell was a 5-4 decision. Lawrence v. Texas was also a 5-4 decision. Since these cases were decided, the Court has moved three seats to the right. We should expect that both of these decisions will be overturned, assuming some state AG sends a case up to the Supremes.

After all, the Court’s Conservatives haven’t gotten more liberal on these issues in the last 10-15 years.

Some more history: Griswold v, Connecticut was decided 7-2, Loving v. Virginia was unanimous; and Brown v. Board of Education was unanimous. All of that said, while history shows that very few 5-4 decisions get overturned, in this time of Conservative Justice grievance, that’s not the way to bet. Even if those cases had been 6-3, 7-2 or 8-1, it wouldn’t matter to the current Justices on the Court.

Pundits are talking as if they would be shocked if the Court reverses Obergefell and Lawrence. That’s because they’re comforted that Thomas’s revolutionary concurrence wasn’t joined by other Justices. But all of them voted to end Roe, and Alito said:

“…abortion is not mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. Therefore, there is no right to an abortion.”

We should also remember that the Court used nearly word for word, the failed Robert Bork’s reasoning why there isn’t a Constitutional right to privacy in Griswold v. Connecticut.

If there’s no right to privacy because the Constitution does not explicitly state there is such a right, then according to the Court’s Conservative 6, all of the rest of our privacy rights are in play. That means nearly nothing in the Fourth Amendment may remain, because you have no right to privacy in your home or in your vehicle.

But if you bet that the Court’s Conservative majority will somehow find that the founders explicitly wanted corporations to have a right to privacy, you’ll earn some folding money.

The naked desire by the Furious Five to achieve their ideological goals as quickly as possible is most likely, uncontrollable. Chief Justice Roberts is being increasingly sidelined because he wants to (at least) try to hide their ideological agenda. But the Furious Five doesn’t have any interest in hiding what they’re doing.

No more calling “balls and strikes” as Roberts said during his 2005 Senate confirmation hearing.

In closing, the music world has reacted strongly to the Supreme Court ruling on abortion. NPR has a nice roundup of what artists are saying and doing in response. Check it out if you have time.

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