Monday, May 15, 2017

Shunning Any Dissent



I resist, protest, march. Indivisibles meetings, letters to the editor, opinions phoned, written on postcards, and faxed to my Congressmen and Congresswomen. Yet what have I done but whine and grouse to no effect?

Electorate protest?
Zip.

Women's march?

Nada. Not even an angry tweet.

Taxes parade?

Zilch.

Every time I sit down to write something astonishing, something that will change the world, it's as if the Universe interferes. My floor needs to be vacuumed. My refrigerator is empty. My phone beeps, rings, and buzzes notifications that are irrelevant to the functioning of the government. My dog asks repeatedly to be let in and out of the back door. And the worst? I succumb to binge watching Scrubs on Netflix and I end up getting sucked in for great swaths of time. Eventually, my husband calls a moratorium on the Scrubs coma and puts on the news. I wake up from my hypnosis, eyes bleary, and I realize I've only been using half of my lung and/or brain capacity in the name of free speech. The best parts of our government are still spiraling the drain. It's an hour past dinner and everyone has eaten Frito's, generic raisin bran, and all of the remaining chocolate eggs hidden in the back of the junk food bin on top of the refrigerator.

Within the first fifteen minutes of any time listening to the news, my heart seizes a bit and I realize that not a single thing has changed as a result of my resistance. More than one hundred days of the Trump administration have passed and no one has come and woken me from the nightmare that is our government. This administration ignores anything that sounds like dissent. They just pretend we don't exist. Did you ever watch middle school bullies play the game of ignoring a nerd? It's agonizing for the nerd. I know. From experience.

This is no different. Millions of us marched around the world in support of science and research, in support of the EPA and keeping our National Parks safe. What did it accomplish?

Zip.

Nada.

Zilch.

We were ignored. Shunned. Not even a tweet.

Trump administration ignores any voice of dissent, even millions of voices, and continues to liquidate the arms of the government that interfere with free reign of corporate interests. He started by gagging the employees of the EPA and the National Parks and has moved on from there.

Take note. HR861 calls to disband the Environmental Protection Agency completely. It's content is a single line, but our government has to take it seriously since it's an actual bill. And we can see that it's on the agenda, even if it doesn't pass this time. The Trump administration wants to eliminate laws that keep our air, water, and land clean. You would wonder what person would agree with that. That would be the corporations.

Remember, corporations have the rights of a person, so there are at least a Fortune 500 of them who would approve of dismantling existing regulations among the millions of us who would protest against it. Incidentally, did any corporation wonder that if people are dying from contaminated water, air, and earth, will we be able to buy its filthy products? Ever think of that, you corporations? No. You wouldn't wonder because not one of you has a brain.

Imagine giving the rights of a person to an entity without a brain.

Don't try to tell me a corporation consists of multitudes of brains. No. That doesn't count. Each person has his own right to be a person, to have his or her own free speech. Corporations are the only entities who are given the rights of a human but don't in fact have a brain, a pair of lungs, or even vocal chords with which to express its so-called right to free speech. In addition to that, those people who work for corporations do not agree in unison on that ideology requiring the protection of their free speech. So, no. Negative. Zip it.

Corporations shouldn't get more rights, the rights to eliminate regulations that are inconvenient to their ability to dispose of their toxic waste.

And look at H.J. Resolution 46. It eliminates National Park's rights to limit drilling due to environmental impact to the area. This could ruin the Everglades, already a delicate ecosystem, as well as Mammoth Cave. If you drill from the earth's surface over Mammoth Cave, how do you keep from drilling into the helmet of some spelunker deep in the caverns? Can you picture oil leaking into the river that runs through the deepest part of the cave, the one we float down on our way to the cafeteria? Will the drilling operators have to pay the entry fee and wend their way through Fat Man's Misery to get to the drilling site every day? I doubt it.

What part of 'national treasure' does the Trump administration not understand? Our National Parks are the jewels of our country. Our clean air, water, and earth are sacrosanct, a legacy we are supposed to hand down to our grandchildren.

I'm telling you with my tiny voice. We'd better pay attention. Trump is willing to leave his own grandchildren wearing gold lame hazmat suits with platinum oxygen tanks in their gilded towers. The rest of us will have to suffer or die trying to speak.

Thank you for listening, jules

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