Missing Hillary Clinton and Mourning the Lost Opportunity

I think I'm never going to get over it, that Hillary Clinton lost to a bigot, a fraud, a man of whom the worst description you can think of wouldn't be strong or comprehensive enough. I miss everything about her and her campaign with Tim Kaine. I miss how I felt, believing that my values would be protected, that the world would be moving forward, with the US taking a stand against bigotry, racism, injustice, inequality and sexism at a time when the far right is gaining momentum everywhere.

Taking a stand for coherence, the importance of truth and unity. I saw #StrongerTogether in continual action through a wide spectrum of communities, across race, gender and economic status. I saw people caring, outraged at the same things that assault me.

I saw tremendous triumph through adversity in Hillary Clinton herself, and I saw how many people liked, admired, and loved her. And I had faith that Barack Obama's incredible legacy would live on, that he and Michelle Obama would be honored for the dignity, grace, wisdom and sheer exuberance they've brought to the White House. 

There was everything to look forward to. The US going from strength to strength, a bastion against the far-right that's gaining ground everywhere.

I looked forward to opening up the New York Times every day for breakfast, and also reading the New Yorker, Politico, Mother Jones, Salon, Vanity Fair, Washington Post, Huffpost as the transition took place, and then as the next four years unfolded. I even hoped that inroads would be made into GOP power in Congress and that Obama's pick for the Supreme Court would go through. I knew Hillary Clinton would be in for a tough fight against Republicans but I had faith that she'd prevail, as Obama has.

I craved an end to the mindless, relentless exposure of a stupid man. I never found him entertaining, I couldn't stand him from the minute I first saw him years ago on his horrible reality show. He's a nasty piece of work through and through. Revolting to look at, revolting inside and out. How I looked forward to the day he was out of the limelight. Gone!

I saw Oprah interview Maya Angelou once, and ask if the pain of her child's death had gotten any easier with time. Maya said why would I want it to? I could relate to that. I gave my beautiful son up for adoption when I was in my twenties and it was the hardest and most awful thing I've ever done. The most painful, definitely. I don't want to let go of the pain. Why would I? So I can feel better? I wouldn't be feeling better, I'd be numb.

This isn't like that, of course. Nothing will ever be like that. But there are some things that are similar. I don't want to move on. I don't want to try and find some good in what's happened. Because there is nothing good. I revile the man who won, and the means by which he did. My intelligence and my soul are assaulted every day by him, as he turns America into a banana republic.

I mourn Hillary Clinton's loss and what it means for the Obamas, for the President's legacy. For the world, for my world. As I said, I don't see myself feeling any better any time soon.

George Zimmerman Trial - a Horrifying Verdict

The acquittal of George Zimmerman by 6 jurors after 20 hours of deliberation is a horrifying indictment of a process that too often doesn't end in truth. How often does somebody get let off or convicted solely because they had the smarter attorneys?

We say that Justice is blind and in this case it was. There wasn't enough hard evidence for the jurors to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that Zimmerman had motive for killing Trayvon Martin, not even for a manslaughter charge. Partly that was because the police believed Zimmerman's story when he told them he shot Trayvon in self defense and they didn't arrest him. Nor did they check Trayvon's clothes for DNA.

But there was evidence that Zimmerman was hugely prejudiced and very self deluded and perfectly at ease with lying to the police, the world and himself. I guess the prosecution just didn't present it clearly enough. Or perhaps they didn't have a chance, with the odds so stacked against them.

But in many ways, the real criminal here is the law in Florida that enables a person to kill somebody else who is not even armed if they believe they're a threat. Or they say they believe it. In a comment on a New York Times article a Betsy Herring of Edmond OK had this to say:

"Our country is in real trouble, folks. First we let the guy go who has gunned down a kid, next we harass women and make them feel like second class citizens in Texas, then we ignore the fact that 26 little kids are dead from gunfire, also we worship at the feet of the NRA, we have a supreme court which hands down bad decisions one after another, we hate our black President and denigrate him more than any other President (even the worst last one). We are beginning to remind me of America 1968 - one of the worst years ever. We are not on the winning side of history here. We are lost, lost, lost."

The Right to Discriminate Against Voters in the US

It’s a wonderful world. A world where our perception is more likely than not to override reality. A person’s life is a mess but they don’t want to face it so they create a fiction that’s easier to live with. A dictator uses chemical weapons on citizens who oppose him but he sees himself as the country’s savior. A man has immense skills, intellect and creative capacity but his self esteem is so ravaged that he sees himself as worthless. A woman is absolutely beautiful but she’s addicted to plastic surgery and ends up looking like a blow-up doll and she thinks now I’m beautiful. 

A country has a world class Constitution that everybody reveres; that is looked to as the most progressive on the earth. And its Supreme Court makes a ruling that allows conservative states to implement rigorous voter ID laws that will effectively cut out a whole sector of the population’s access to voting. Of course the ruling allows progressive states to do it also, so it’s fair.

And the argument for striking down a law that prohibited this practice? Well, the law was to protect African Americans in the deep South racist states. And there’s no more racism there any more. Texas isn’t racist now? 48 years is plenty of time to change hatred, fear and a belief in the right to violent domination that’s been etched into a national psyche? This from the Supreme Court? The ignorance is shocking. Voter access standards should and must be at the lowest common denominator, so that the poorest person can vote. That’s what democracy is about. Otherwise, it’s not democracy.

This ruling notches up that standard so that the poorest can’t vote. Not if they can’t afford a photo ID. States can do whatever they want now. Their decision can be challenged – in Congress, that body notorious for employing dirty tricks to prevent reasonable laws being enacted that will empower the lower and middle classes.

Ross Douthat, a conservative Republican who writes a column for the New York Times, recently wrote that this ruling is actually a gift for Democrats, essentially because it will make them rally and voter turnout will increase. This writer has very curious logic and, in true Conservative Republican style, makes grandiose statements but doesn't back them up with facts - because the facts contradict his position. 

Sarcastically he writes that liberals are expecting Republican states to roll out laws that will “suppress” voters. Well, his sarcasm falls horribly flat. He omitted to mention that within 24 hours of the Supreme Court ruling, Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott said "With today's decision, the state's voter ID law will take effect immediately…Redistricting maps passed by the Legislature may also take effect without approval from the federal government." (DallasMorning News 25 June 2013).

As of last Thursday photo ID was required of voters in Texas. That was fast. Not mentioning this was the writer’s his way of proving his point and the merit of his sarcasm?

But the argument that really floored me was his saying that taking away a person’s rights to vote is good for them. Well then we must congratulate husbands who beat their wives and rape their little girls, priests who rape little boys, men and women who traffic women and children, because look at all the support there is for those victims now. 

This Supreme Court ruling makes a mockery of everything America hopes to stand for, and exposes the truth. Which is that half of America stands for everything that is good and progressive regarding human rights. 

The other half is doing everything it can to drag the country down to a place of no integrity, no morals, no respect for human rights or dignity. In other words, strip it of everything that makes it a democracy. And Justices seriously need to educate themselves on psychology and broaden their perspective. They know perfectly well that the current Congress will not stand in the way of any state that wants to instigate repressive voter ID laws. The only states that will want to do it are Republican, because the poorer people in America vote Democrat. Which means that Section 4 should not have been struck down.

Is this how Republicans plan to win the next election? Only a year ago they were talking about how they knew they had to change if they wanted to hold onto any position at all, given the shifting demographics. Well, this is one way of changing. Get dirtier.

A Dream Come True in New York City

The capacity to turn big dreams into magnificent realities is America’s hallmark.  A project that illustrates that fabulously happened in New York City. It revived a piece of New York’s history, preserved it for posterity, and created a unique park for Manhattans, raised thirty feet above street level.

 

In 1847 The City of New York authorized the installation of railroad tracks down Manhattan’s West Side.  Hailed as a brilliant idea, it also caused so many accidents between traffic and freight trains that 10th Avenue soon became known as Death Avenue. A posse of horsemen, the West Side Cowboys, had to ride ahead of trains waving red flags, to warn traffic.

 

The problem was addressed in 1929 with the West Side Improvement Project, which included a Railway Line thirty feet above street level.  It travelled through the center of factories and warehouses, so goods trains could roll right inside buildings without interrupting traffic.  The line worked wonderfully until interstate trucking made rail transport redundant. The last train, of three cars carrying frozen turkeys, ran in 1980.

 

The line was abandoned until the late 1990’s when two young men from Manhattan, Joshua David and Robert Hammond, founded Friends of the High Line to stop it being demolished. They had no experience in urban planning or dealing with the City, but they saw how gorgeous the line would be as a public open space.  

 

They worked hard on their dream and when they garnered City support and funding to create a planning framework over the next three years, the project had wings. By 2003 it had become an project backed by New York City and State. The design team included architecture and landscape architecture firms, and experts in horticulture, engineering, security, maintenance and public art.  

 

Construction started in April 2006, and by June 2012 it was complete.  New York City now has a unique skyline park of 2.3 km of self-seeded wild sections alternated with lush lawns, formal landscaping, benches and boardwalks. Thirty feet above downtown Manhattan’s chaos. And all because two young men had a dream and the determination to see it fulfilled.