This letter is to respond to Bruce Newport-Kilauano’s letter (TGI, July 9) calling for civility on “both sides” of the political spectrum.
At its heart, this is a nice sentiment. This is just a brand-new Fox News and right-wing media attempt to silence vociferous dissent to the vile policies of the Trump administration and his complicit GOP Congress.
Let me point out: No one called for civility in the nearly 10 times that Donald Trump incited violence at his rallies or when he called the white nationalists “very fine people” after Heather Heyer was run down while peacefully protesting in Charlottesville.
Also, right-wing media has repeated said that Rep. Maxine Waters called for violence against the DT administration. This is untrue if you look at the actual clips and texts of what she has said. She did state that it is fine to harass his minions over the latest child-snatching controversy.
In fact, if you do the research, the right has a near monopoly in America of violence against its political opposition. You don’t find many cases of “bleeding heart” or “libtards” picking up guns against those with whom they disagree politically.
We were polite when we found out the election had been thrown to Trump by Comey and Russia.
We were polite when he ratcheted up rhetoric against North Korea and then cozied up to NK dictator Kim John Un, which proved a farce just this weekend as NK has stated they have no plans to denuclearize.
We were polite as they rolled back regulations to hedge against climate change, clean air and clean water.
We were polite as he began a trade war with allies and threatened the Atlantic Alliance which has created greater world peace since World War II.
We were even polite way back when Mitch McConnell stole an appointment from Barack Obama for the Supreme Court.
Many of us hit our limits when we found out they were forcibly separating infants and toddlers from their parents for months and still have no viable plan to reunite them.
Now we’re facing a Supreme Court that is already ruling against working families. All indications are that women will lose access to safe and legal abortion. (No matter your opinion on abortion, facts do show that abortion is at a 40-year low when it is safe, legal and available. Abortions don’t go away if illegal. More women do die, though.)
I work in healthcare. They’re threatening taking away the right to get insurance with pre-existing conditions. I know the millions of people who will be devastated by this. They’re also talking about gutting or destroying entirely Social Security and Medicare. I’m keenly aware of how many of our kapuna only survive because of these two successful systems.
As a gay man, I got legally married in Hawaii in 2013. The new Supreme Court will try to take that right away from me based on all analysis.
All indicators and evidence are that our president is a witting agent of Russia, which is hostile to the US on every level. They meddled in our election in 2016 and are already doing so for 2018 and Congress nor the President have done anything to stop this. In fact, eight GOP senators met in Moscow on July 4 of this year to kiss up to the Kremlin.
There’s no story where fascism ever ended by a little more diplomacy, politeness and civility.
American democracy, your civil rights and mine are now on the chopping block.
I won’t pick up arms, but I’ll use my First Amendment right to free speech and protest to its legal limit. I’m not giving up the America I love without a fight. And if I drop a few “f-bombs” along the way, you’ll have to get over it. Remember, we’re fighting for your rights, too.
This isn’t really a fight of left versus right as it’s seemingly being played out worldwide. It’s really a fight of the oligarchs versus the working and lower class. It’s also a fight of autocracy versus democracy. I choose to fight for regular people and democracy. I kinda think Miss Manners would forgive me under these dire circumstances.
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Jason Blake is a resident of Puhi.
