Death by religion again

A silent killer, believed now to have begun its work somewhere in the early seventies, and, perhaps, even earlier, had been working its way through the population only to be discovered in the opening years of the 1980s.

A doctor, the majority of whose patients were young, Gay men, began seeing an increase in his patients dying from what should have been routine and easily treated pneumonia. This was a new trend while other patients were showing signs of a rare form of skin cancer usually associated with old people in the Mediterranean area of Europe.

His request to the CDC for a rarely used drug alerted a secretary there that something was going on. Further investigation determined that the death by pneumonia and the contraction of Kaposi Sarcoma was not just a rare oddity, but the possible manifestation of a new disease.

Since the patients suffering from it were Gay men, beginning in May, i982 it was called Gay Related Immune Deficiency (GRID) and more commonly “Gay Cancer”.

This is how it was labeled in the media, and this helped cement the misconception that it was somehow able to target one particular group.

And, because it was limited to only a small community, and ,because it was seen as a handy tool for the religious right to promote itself and its political agenda, it was determined to e a punishment from God meted out to show His disapproval of the “homosexual lifestyle”, and this was bought by too many, including a president, some of whose Hollywood friends were dying of it. The disease was allowed to takes it course because only “THEY” were dying, and no one should interfere with God’s work.

Putting people with the disease in concentration camps was seen as a viable way to prevent the spread of the disease, and would have the people with it concentrated in one place dying without familial contact. This idea was eventually abandoned.

When something was finally done only one pharmaceutical company with lobbyist connections to the administration received approval for a drug to deal with the disease. As time went on it was determined that if you did not die of the disease itself you died from the affects of AZT. Later, and too late for many, other drugs were shown to be more effective and less deadly than AZT. More effective drugs, that followed like Truvada, Sustiva, and Genvoya were based on a drug cocktail in a single pill.

However, before these one pill cocktails, doctor in New York City. seeing his patients coming down with symptoms, did his own research and determined that what was needed was a drug “cocktail” that would slow the effects of the disease while helping the body rebuild its immune system, but this violated the very weak and limited best practices as determined by lobbyists for the drug companies and the still uncertain medical profession. In spite of the measurable success he was having, the doctor was told to cease his prescribing the combination of drugs, and eventually lost his certification to practice medicine.

As those who “deserved” to die from the “Gay cancer” continued to do so, and as the progress of the disease was reported with a sense of relief by those who thought it would never touch them, as “they” not “we” were dying, and as the religious right jubilantly promoted the divine punishment concept, another doctor whose patients were demonstrably heterosexual with children and grand children noticed the constant references to deaths by pneumonia in the new, and having had patients in the past who died of it, went back into his files to ascertain how many of his patient had succumbed to pneumonia, how many of these cases were just odd, and whether or not had these deaths occurred in a close grouping, as opposed to having been spread out, it would have been obvious that there had actually been something unnoticeable at the time going on.

He determined there was.

And so began the understanding that while the original doctor’s patients may have succumbed in a concentrated group over a short time, others, heterosexuals, had been dying of the same thing, but not being concentrated were assumed to be isolated oddities.

What was now called AIDS had not been isolated to Gay men, but had always been lurking unnoticed in the general population. Homophobia and nonscientific religious bigotry had allowed the assumption that the disease was isolated in a small concentrated population while it went unnoticed in the larger and more spread out one.

While Gays “deserved” the disease, as if they purposely contracted it, Heterosexuals were called “innocent victims” who had it thrust upon them, so something was finally going to have to be done.

Pharmaceutical cocktails became acceptable, and the support system of doctors and nurses willing to work with people with AIDS, the support system, and the treatment that the GLBT Community had to create in isolation for self preservation became the model for treating everyone, many of whom would not have had to deal with the disease if it had been met originally with science and ont religious prejudice.

Peopled died who should not have.

People did nothing who should have.

We were Gay people, political fodder to those who wanted the evangelical votes, and religious fodder for those who cannot bring people to Christ by preaching the gospel but rely on demonizing “the other” and scaring converts to Christ, ignoring His calls to love one another to favor coming to Jesus because you hate one another.

Both were happy to just let us die.

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Those years were horrendous, and the generation between the old Gays and the young ones was practically wiped out and with it the necessary bridge to connect the two by passing on history.

And now we may have to deal with the dying again, this time not as two separate groups, Gay an Straight, but as one, US.

The Trump administration has shut down research into a cure for HIV.

A scientist who supplies mice modified with human fetal tissue for an HIV study was directed by the Department of Health and Human Services to discontinue procuring fetal tissue.

This will effectively stop all research to discover a cure for HIV.

Christian conservatives, the bigots who caused the problem in the 80s, strongly oppose research that uses aborted fetal tissue. Republicans have a history of trying to ban all fetal tissue research to appease the religious right, and this year 85 Republican House members wrote a letter to the head of the FDA asking for a ban on fetal tissue research.

Warner Greene, director of the Gladstone Center for HIV Cure Research, which was about to collaborate with the Montana lab on HIV research, said in response,

“We were all poised to go and then the bombshell was dropped. The decision completely knocked our collaboration off the rails. We were devastated. You spend your life trying to do good experiments and organize your science carefully, and suddenly, at the whim of some politicians in Washington, D.C., they remove a critical piece of your scientific armamentarium.”

The study would have relied on fetal tissue donated by women who have had legal abortions in order to produce “humanized mice” that have been used for years for research in infectious diseases, including HIV.

Before this action, researchers at the lab were going to test a promising antibody that prevents HIV from developing in cells that are not producing the virus, cells that aren’t affected by currently available HIV medication.

Researcher Kim Hasenkrug, who was supposed to provide humanized mice for the study of the HIV antibody, sent an email to Greene explaining,

“[HHS] has directed me to discontinue procuring fetal tissue from ABR, the only source for us. I think that they are the only provider of fetal tissue for scientists in the nation who don’t have direct access to aborted fetal tissue. This effectively stops all of our research to discover a cure for HIV.”

It is unclear whether non-NIH labs that receive NIH funding will also be banned from using fetal tissue. That would eliminate all research.

The Trump Department of Health and Human Services has established a Conscience and Religious Freedom Division to handle complaints from health care providers who do not want to perform abortions or treat transgender people.

The Department of Justice also has established a similar office whose job is to protect people who discriminate in violation of established laws because of personal religious beliefs from getting sued.

So like science and law being put under the control of religion, so is our health.

Religious bias: 2

Us: 0

Sharia law is not the problem.

It’s about more than collusion.

 

It is about more than Collusion.

Government officials have stayed in Trump hotels.

The membership rate at Mar a Lago doubled after the election. People who wanted to benefit from and, perhaps, have a say in policies with his being president have anted up.

Most of the recent $35 million he made in real estate came from shell companies which hide the buyers’ identities, and went into a trust the president can access.

In spite of his promises that as president he would have no involvement in the Trump companies, done with piles of files n front of T.V. cameras to show what he was giving up, Eric Trump has been giving him quarterly updates.

It has cost the taxpayers well over $70 million for him to go to Trump owned properties where he charges the government for the rental of the rooms for the secret service who protect him and for the golf carts they have to use to follow him around when he plays golf.

He hired only the best people.

  • Ryan Zinke, secretary of the interior, chartered a $12,000 flight from Las Vegas to Montana at taxpayers’ expense failed to disclose an investment in a Montana gun company, spent almost $40,000 of a wildfire preparedness fund to pay for flights, and paid $6,000 for a helicopter trip to visit Vice President Mike Pence.
  • Scott Pruitt, ran the Environmental Protection Agency, but had to resign because of questionable fraternizing with oil company donors and lobbyists, and extravagant spending of taxpayer money.
  • Steve Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, attempted to use a government plane to fly him to Europe for his honeymoon, and to use a taxpayer-funded military plane to view a solar eclipse.
  • David Shulkin, as the secretary of Veterans Affairs, charged taxpayers for a trip that included stops at Wimbledon and Westminster Abbey, and a river cruise for him and his wife.
  • Tom Price, the former secretary of health and human services, resigned when he was caught having spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on private planes..
  • On the same day that China’s president met with President Trump, a Chinese government office approved trademarks for Ivanka’s fashion company.
  • Michael Flynn was fired as national security adviser because he lied about lobbying for the Turkish government, and is now saving his skin and his kid’s skin by spilling his guts to Robert Mueller.
  • Kellyanne Conway pushed Ivanka’s fashion line on television.
  • Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz donated or solicited more than $50,000 on behalf of a Manhattan district attorney who later dropped a case against Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr.
  • A charity led by Eric Trump paid over $145,000 to properties owned by his father during the election, and, despite pledging not to raise money for the charity after his resignation from its board, continued to attend fundraisers held at Trump properties.
  • Brenda Fitzgerald, Trump’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention director, bought shares in food, drug and tobacco companies while her agency that is supposed to work to reduce smoking. She had to resign.
  • Paul Manafort, well there’s just too much.

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The Trump administration has eliminated regulations that were lobbied against by a company owned by a member of the president’s infrastructure council, and this stands to benefit other members of that council who hold investments in industries set to benefit from increased infrastructure spending, and who have longstanding personal connections to Trump.

Trump directed his former lawyer Michael Cohen to pay hush money to women so they wouldn’t accuse him of affairs during the 2016 campaign, and directing Cohen to commit those actions could be a crime violating campaign finance laws as they could be considered unclaimed contributions in kind.

Although Trump finally claimed that what he did was not a crime, he first denied he did that then said he had learned about it post facto.

And then, after claiming there was nothing going on between his campaign and Russia, and if there had been, he wasn’t aware of it, it is becoming clear that he lied about that. A meeting held in his tower where he lives and works, attended by his campaign team, including his son, is something a businessman as good as he claims he is, would have noticed.

Impeachment is a political process, not a criminal one, so, if Congress thinks that what Team Trump  did constitutes “high crimes and misdemeanors,” that’s all it takes to start the process,

With recent revelations about his concealing the truth about his conduct, both with regard to Russia and to his affairs, even some of his staunchest Republican allies have to admit things are getting hard to ignore, especially as it becomes obvious that he attempted to derail Mueller’s  investigation.

After all Trump did ask FBI Director James Comey to abandon the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election, and then fired him admitting. In a T.V. interview, it was because of “the Russia thing”.

Trump dumped Jeff Sessions because he recused himself from the Russia Investigation and did not protect him, as if his job was to do that.

The Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause prohibits the president from accepting personal benefits from any foreign government or official. Even little things given to the president by foreign heads of state belong to the country not a president. And as mentioned above, Trump has retained his ownership interests in his family business.

When a foreign official stays at a Trump hotel, or a foreign government approves a new Trump Organization project, or grants a trademark, like China did with Ivanka,  Trump is in violation of the Constitution.

His golf trips to Trump properties mean money to his family business.

When Natalia Veselnitskaya, who had ties to high-ranking Kremlin officials, proposed a meeting with Team Trump to give it dirt on Hillary Clinton,  Don Junior said, “I love it,” and had Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner attend it. Trump personally dictated the original public statement on behalf of his son lying about the intended purpose of the meeting and then that he had anything to do with the statement.

Trump’s campaign aided a hostile foreign power’s active operation against the United States.

Trump defended the neo-Nazis who rioted in Charlottesville and murdered a protester which violated his obligation to protect the citizenry against domestic violence. He also encouraged police officers to rough up people they arrest, and in so doing violated his obligation to oversee faithful execution of the laws. And, he violated his obligation to uphold equal protection of the laws when he retweeted anti-Muslim tweets and memes.

This violated his oath of office.

Trump repeatedly pressured the Department of Justice and the FBI to investigate and prosecute political adversaries, an inappropriate abuse of executive branch powers.

When he called the leader of North Korea “Rocket Man” in tweets, and then went to the U.N. General Assembly and did it in an official speech, as Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States” he could have caused a needless confrontation with a foreign power which could have endangered millions of Americans.

In violation of the First Amendment’s protection of the press, President Trump has repeatedly attacked the concept of an independent press calling critical coverage “fake news” and journalists “the enemy of the American people”, and by threatening  to change libel laws and revoke licenses.

He is fixated on “co-looooooshun” and seems totally unaware that there are more things he needs to be aware of. So if collusion does not come up, he sees nothing else that could bring him down even as others see something is there.

While his toilet overflows he thinks the plumbing is just fine because the sink still drains.

forced loyalty

In my almost 40 years of teaching, the perennial question that arose whenever an administrator would admonish teachers for having political opinions and, perhaps, expressing them was, “How are we teachers supposed to be examples of citizenship to our students if, in order to enter the classroom, we are expected to leave our Constitutional rights at the school house door?”

This giving up Constitutional rights is not limited to school teachers, but to most people who work for governmental agencies.

It is not, or at least hasn’t been an official limitation, merely one imposed by supervisors who do not want their own political agendas questioned. Although not necessarily policy, it is common practice.

Well, until now.

Quietly, at the end of November, the Trump administration barred nearly two million federal employees from speaking in any negative fashion about Trump.

Just as phrases like “climate change” and “global warming” cannot be used by federal agencies that deal with the environment, the words “resist” and “resistance,” as well as any discussion of impeachment are banned.

Although all federal employees are subject to the Hatch Act that restricts them from participating in partisan political campaigns while at work or when they are acting in their official capacity, those who spoke favorably about Trump under those conditions were allowed to do so freely.

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But, with people like Kelly Anne Conway stumping for candidates in her official capacity on selected media outlets, the Office of Special Counsel (OSC) decided that several Trump officials had violated the act by using their official Twitter account to tweet out #MAGA and retweeting partisan research.

In response, the OSC told all federal employees that the terms “resistance” and “#resist” are now forbidden because they have become connected with the electoral success, or failure, of the president, and advocating for impeachment is the same as advocating against Trump because he has declared he was running for a second term almost immediately after beginning his first.

So in the eyes of his administration and the OSC  no one with a federal job can speak out about Trump in a negative way as he is a political candidate, and this violates the prohibition on campaigning on duty  for or against a candidate while federally employed.

It is a clever and biased reading of the act.

The Hatch Act is supposed to stop the Trump administration, or any administration,  from using federal employees as campaign staff or political props, but this action stops federal employees from having any publicly expressed opinion on the administration. It goes too far as it refers only to those things that are perceived as anti-Trump.

Millions of federal employees are now barred from speaking out against Trump.

Trump has tried to demand personal loyalty, and as that has not been 100% forthcoming, he has found a way to make it mandatory.

We are the United States. We will continue to discriminate, thank you very much

Okay, I did some research into how much of the “best friend of the Gays” Trump is as he claims he was during the election, especially after I was once again told by a young Gay man who has never had to fight for the rights won by those who fought the good fight for equality, and another not so young man who enjoyed the rights won as they were being won without helping to get what he had no problem accepting, and who voted for the politicians who consistently opposed equality.

The former, for all intents and purposes, has always had his rights, some having been won when he was too young to have known that without those victories his life would not be as it is, and the latter may be able to tell you the names of all the bars in Boston and Providence in the past and present, as well as the names of the bartenders, but he has actually dismissed the fact that while he assumed all was right with the world, Gay men were being bashed entering and leaving bars, and thinks some bars had their entrances hidden in alleys while located in the seamier sides of towns as a fashion choice because it was rather chic.

Trump said he as our best friend, so it must be true,

Pointing out how some of his actions may very well undo the gains that seemed to have just happened, these two scoff at the idea because, well, gee, people aren’t mean like that.

These are some of what I found:

Donald Trump supported the anti-GLBTQ law, North Carolina’s HB2, which made it illegal for cities to expand upon state laws by adding sexual orientation and gender identity to local nondiscrimination ordinances as more than a dozen cities had done, and his Vice-President, as governor of Indiana, signed a bill to allow businesses to discriminate and deny service to GLBT people because of who they are.

Trump has also said he would sign the so-called First Amendment Defense Act (FADA) that would allow for discrimination against GLBT people nation-wide.

Trump opposed marriage equality because he was, ironically, as he said, a “traditional” guy, claiming he would prefer domestic partnership benefits. That was until he later said that he also opposed civil unions.

Asked whether gay couples should be able access the same civil benefits as married couples, he answered,

“I would say no.”

He believed the Supreme Court decision on same sex marriage was wrong, and, as he has done, said he would appoint Supreme Court judges who would be committed to overturning the ruling.

I’m just not in favor of gay marriage. I live in New York. New York is a place with lots of gays, and I think it’s great. But I’m not in favor of gay marriage.”

He rescinded the Obama Administration’s guidance that transgender students be treated with dignity and allowed to use restrooms that match their gender identity, and has done what he could to keep Transgender people from serving in the military based on no evidence to say that his decision was a good thing.

One of his first actions was to remove anything related to GLBT people from the White House web site, and, while it is acceptable for a new administration to amend the site upon taking over, that formation was not included in the revamp.

Other actions taken by Trump upon entering the office were:

  • Rescinding President Obama’s Executive Order 13673, the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Order, that required contractors seeking federal contracts prove they comply with federal laws prohibiting discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity and gender stereotyping.
  • Appointing Roger Severino to lead the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Civil Rights, a man who had been the Director of the DeVos Center of Religion and Civil Society for the Heritage foundation where he had opposed extending nondiscrimination protection for Transgender people, and was against the ACA’s prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, national origin, disabilitym and sex in federally funded health programs,
  • Cutting millions of dollar from AIDS research and prevention programs, and
  • Removing the counting of GLBT people on the 2020 census which will eliminate the statistics necessary when considering legislation that could improve the lives of GLBT people.

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His Justice Department has redefined sex to how a person was designated at birth, which makes any deviation from the by sight designation unable to claim sexual discrimination in federal law, and removes the rights of Transgender people even though a person’s gender goes far beyond the visible plumbing at birth.

“Redefining” marriage, a societal construct, was anathema, yet redefining sex while disregarding science is perfectly fine.

Trump supports the religious liberty nonsense that merely allows people to discriminate against GLBT people in the name of their personally held religious beliefs. Equality and the equal application of law toward GLBT people, and the requirement that they follow established law was considered a special right, while picking and choosing which laws a person will follow based on a claim of religious beliefs, a challenge to that claim having been rendered unlawful by the Trump administration’s Justice Department, is, somehow, not a special right.

During his nomination speech, Trump announced he would protect the GLBT community from harm from foreign ideologies. Besides not saying he would protect us from harmful domestic ideologies, he may have implied harm from Islamic states who throw us off buildings, but he also did not define what he meant by harm.

Perhaps until recently.

Discrimination based on politics or one particular religion is harm by domestic ideology.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which Trump claims was one of the worst trade deals ever, has been replaced with United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) after being signed by Trump, Canada’s Justin Trudeau ,and Mexico’s Enrique Pena Nieto at the G20 summit in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

After a draft was published, changes were made to the discrimination provision.

Because there is no federal law banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity in the United States, the Trump administration and Republican lawmakers threatened to reject the agreement if it required those protections.

The initial draft text committed parties to enact

“policies that protect workers against employment discrimination on the basis of sex, including with regard to pregnancy, sexual harassment, sexual orientation, [and] gender identity,”

but the final form only says it will implement

“policies that it considers appropriate to protect workers against employment discrimination” based on the characteristics.

“That it considers appropriate” weakens protections, and there is a footnote that clarifies that no changes would be required to law in the United States.

The footnote states,

 “The United States’ existing federal agency policies regarding the hiring of federal workers are sufficient to fulfill the obligations set forth in this Article. The Article thus requires no additional action on the part of the United States, including any amendments to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, in order for the United States to be in compliance with the obligations set forth in this Article.”

This change came after a letter from 40 Congressional Republicans which stated:

“We are deeply concerned… by the unprecedented inclusion of sexual orientation and gender identity language for the first time in a Free Trade Agreement. A trade agreement is no place for the adoption of social policy. It is especially inappropriate and insulting to our sovereignty to needlessly submit to social policies which the United States Congress has so far explicitly refused to accept.”

No one is going to force the U.S. not to discriminate.

Canada banned discrimination based on sexual orientation in 1996, and expanded the ban to include gender identity and expression in 2017.

Mexico outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation in 2003, but hasn’t done the same for gender identity or expression yet.

In the United States any efforts to pass equality legislation  like The Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), that would prohibit discrimination in hiring and employment on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity by employers with at least 15 employees, have been consistently blocked by Republicans.

It is still legal to discriminate against Gay employees in 29 US states and transgender workers in 34 US states.

Nancy Pelosi, Democratic nominee for Speaker of the House of Representatives, may have placed ENDA on a priority list, but, even if it were to pass in the House, it still has to pass the Republican senate and be signed by a president who has obviously shown he has a problem with non-celebrity GLBT people.

He does what he can to erase Transgender people and their rights as U.S. citizens, but he has let Caitlyn Jenner know she can pee in her chosen restroom at Trump Tower.

So the Artiste of the Deal has signed a deal, but only because the United States can keep on discriminating against GLBT people,

That’s what friends do.

 

There WAS election fraud

GOP has been claiming for quite some time that voter fraud and  election tampering by “illegal aliens” and dead people has been a boon for the Democrats.

Trump even put together a committee to investigate this perennial crime. That committee was disbanded when they could not find any evidence of this horrendous crime.

Until now.

Examples of voter fraud  and election tampering have been found.

After the people of Wisconsin spoke through the ballot box and sent the message that they wanted something different, the predominantly GOP legislature passed laws to limit the newly elected governor’s power, and voted to accept 81 nominees to positions of power in a 24 hour period, so the governor will not be able to implement his campaign promises, the ones the people voted for.

Meanwhile in Michigan, the legislature is moving to weaken public-sector unions before a Democrat takes over the governor’s mansion.

Florida blocked college students from voting on campus, Texas did the same with historically Black colleges, and Kansas closed polling places in heavily Hispanic neighborhoods with traditionally voting liberal and Democrat a common trait .
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Native Americans could not vote in North Dakota unless they had an ID with a street address on it in spite of the law that says Native Americans on reservations can’t have them.

Georgia purged thousands of people off the voter rolls, the majority of whom were not registered as Republican.

In North Carolina the GOP candidate had people go to the homes of Democrats with absentee and mail-in ballots and, while posing as election officials collected those ballots, but did not hand them in.

All this was done by the GOP.

They turned out to have been partially correct.

There was voter fraud and election tampering, but it was done by them not “illegals” and dead people.

 

a thought

Some other possibilities more in line with the desire for younger leadership  with progressive ideas.

Kirsten Gillibrand
Beto O’Rourke
Kamala Harris
Jeff Merkley
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Cory Booker
Sherrod Brown
Amy Klobuchar.

Perhaps, since there was a lot of talk about how we older people messed things up,  didn’t do as well as we should have, and need to pass on the baton, it would be a good idea, while appreciating what work they have done, to move beyond people like Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton,

Just a thought.

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History lesson

What’s one way to avoid doing what you should be doing?

Present someone not related to your responsibility as somehow responsible for your not doing what you should be doing so people’s attention is on the false enemy, and while they go after them, you can just sit back.

As the present administration cuts money from programs that help veterans while nothing is being done to deal with homeless vets and the number of vet suicides, and while vet payments are not being paid on time, people are sending around memes with some guilt attached with the notice that if you think vets deserve more than migrants you should pass it on.

There are rules, laws, and programs that deal with both groups and these is no overlap.

Neither is dependent on the other, nor is an increase to one a denial to the other.

Treating migrants according to our laws takes nothing away from the vets, but if people, politicians especially ,can get others to become angry about something like this that does not exist, the anger will distract people from seeing it is not the migrants who are taking things way from the vets, but it is the politicians who cut programs or do not act who are the real enemies of the vets.

The United States has a history of helping people from foreign countries, and the people of this country have not only had a problem with that, but have realized it has benefited this country.

Two examples:

In 1957 the Capelinhos volcano erupted off the western coast of the island of Faial in the Azores.

Between September 16 and 27, 1957, there were 200 related earthquakes. The eruption began below sea level, eventually breaking the surface, and after a series of eruptions throughout the following 12 months, added 593.05 square acres to the island. The island had been primarily dependent on whaling and agriculture, but the sand and ash from the eruption made the land untillable.

There were no deaths, but there was much destruction of homes and other structures with 164 families directly affected while 2,000 inhabitants of the island lost their homes to the tremors, projectiles, and ash.

Because of the historic relationship between Portugal and cities in Massachusetts and Rhode Island, Democratic Congressmen John O. Pastore of Rhode Island and Senator John F. Kennedy of Massachusetts proposed the Azorean Refugee Act and which was signed by President Eisenhower on September 2, 1958, authorizing the emigration of 1,500 people which became a total of 4,800.

These people established small businesses on the East Coast that contributed greatly to local economies, while many went to the Central Valley of California where they continued to make their livelihoods in agriculture benefiting the economy of that state.

Eventually this Act influenced a change in immigration laws resulting in 25,000 Portuguese citizens eventually immigrating to this country.

Those who came over were not fleeing a life threatening environment, war, forced gang membership, death, and rape.

Congress passed House Resolution 1438: Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Azorean Refugee Act of 1958 and celebrating the extensive contributions of Portuguese-American communities to the United States.

In support of this, Representative Devin Nunes, himself of Portuguese ancestry, praised the resolution and explained the positive results to this country when refugees are welcomed in.

“The immigrants arriving from the Azores reached the shores of the United States as manual laborers, and without much proper education they relied solely on the fruits of their hard work to earn their living. Portuguese immigrants distinguished themselves in farming, fishing, and other trades, and built for this Nation a solid foundation of honesty and pride in their work. Subsequent generations have rested upon this heritage to succeed in our society, with a great many Portuguese-American communities producing professors, lawyers, physicians, judges, politicians and other leading figures of our society.
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Fifty years later, the admirable successes of Portuguese-American communities throughout California, New England, and elsewhere are a testament to their remarkable work ethic and integrity, which truly inspire us all. Their story is one of sweat, toils, and struggles before a new land, and in itself reflects the very spirit of this nation.

For all of that, this resolution recognizes the great importance, of the Azorean Refugee Act, and the vast contributions made by these Azorean communities, who truly turned tragedy into triumph. Let us never forget that America’s strength rests on the inclusion of people from all parts of the world and in the generosity that flows from our ideals of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

After Fidel Castro’s successful revolution on the Island of Cuba, members of the middle and upper classes of the island fled due to fear of widespread reprisals. They were mainly seeking political asylum. They were given different treatment under U.S. immigration statutes than immigrants who were not categorized as political refugees.

The United States instituted what is referred to as a “wet foot/dry foot” practice toward Cuban immigrants.

Those apprehended on water while attempting to reach land are returned to Cuba. Those who reach land are inspected by the Department f Homeland Security and are allowed to stay in the United States.

They are considered asylum seekers.

Those who are allowed to stay are fast tracked for a green card as they can apply for a Green Card after living in the United States for one year, whereas people from other countries may have to wait up to four years. Spouses and young children of Cuban citizens, regardless of the country they leave to come here, can use this law to get a Green Card, even if they are not Cuban citizens themselves. Someone who was born in Cuba but becomes a citizen elsewhere can get a Green Card under this law. Cubans who have had a family based petition approved can be paroled into the United States while he or she is waiting for a Green Card.

Asylum is based on

“abridgement of the right of citizens to change their government; government threats, intimidation, mobs, harassment, and detentions to prevent citizens from assembling peacefully.”

Upon arrival, besides the fast track to a Green Card, Cuban refugees receive funds for resettlement, financial assistance to meet the basic maintenance requirements, essential health services, surplus food, financial assistance for the care of unaccompanied children, and assistance in finding employment.

These advantages would have been lost after 58 years with the normalizing of the relationship between the United States and Cuba, and this may explain the opposition to President Obama’s attempt to accomplish that, especially the opposition by Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio.

When President Obama abruptly ended the wet foot/dry foot policy at the end of his second term in 2017, the Cuban Exile community went nuts.

In the former case we made it possible for refugees to come to this country although they were not threatened by the ravages of war, nor other threats to their lives from government upheaval,  “government threats, intimidation, mobs, harassment, and detentions to prevent citizens from assembling peacefully.”

And we saw their coming here was a benefit to them and us.

In the latter case, we allowed for asylum seekers to get it, and we sweetened the pot by extending benefits that no one else gets.

There was no hew and cry that these programs took from vets while giving to refugees because they didn’t, just as being American toward refugee now doesn’t.

Consider this when refugees are used as political pawns.

Also, consider these as two real examples of how refugees and asylum seekers were a boon to this country, especially if these programs are part of your family’s experiences.

And, while you are at it, call on the politicians to do what they should be doing for vets, and stop falling for their self-protecting distraction.

Another view

Government studies have weight and power.

After defining a problem, documenting the causes of it, its effects on the citizenry, and recommending solutions to address it, the study can be called on to get those in positions able to act on the contents of the study to do so. There is a certain degree of pressure and little room for refusing to do what is right. These studies also become the basis of laws and policies.

Those things not included in such studies, no matter how much of a problem they are, what solutions are promoted, and how strong the advocacy for them may be, lack the power they could have if they were in such a study.

That is why when President George HW Bush decided for political expediency to withhold the chapter that dealt with Gay students when the 1989 Health and Human Service study “Report of the Secretary’s Task Force on Youth Suicide” was released because he did not want the Reagonite conservative base to be offended, he in effect endangered the lives of those students who would have benefited from the contents.

When school districts began to institute policies and teacher training to reduce bullying in schools as a result of that report, they went to their default modes and dealt only with those groups specifically listed in the existing federal nondiscrimination language that addressed, race, sex, creed, color, national origin, religion, marital status and disability and saw no reason to expand that list, an expansion that would hve been supported if the whole report had been released.

Although the missing chapter had shown Gay teens attempted and completed suicides at a rate three times higher than any other group to which students belonged; that unlike others whose rejection was based on their race, sex, creed, color, national origin, religion, or disability, teens who were Gay faced bullying on multiple fronts; that the reason for the majority of suicide attempts was not that the students realized they were Gay, but because of the treatment Gay students were subjected to based on prejudice, misinformation, and, sadly, Biblical interpretations; and recommended clear and practical ways to reduce the bullying, not having been included in the report’s release, those recommendations and any actions that could be taken could be ignored and resisted.

They  were and still are.

I have the documentation that shows this.

While school districts came up with policies, and cities and states came up with laws to reduce bullying directed toward the majority community because of the report as released, doing the same for Gay teens relied on individuals and local groups advocating on a location by location basis with varying success, and was seen more as an option than a concern equal to the other groups to which teens belonged.

In the Oklahoma City Public School system, advocacy to address the existence of and the treatment to which Gay students were subjected, and to have them openly included in student policies on bullying, harassment, and nondiscrimination was countered for years by claiming sexual orientation and gender identity did not have to be addressed because they did not appear on the government’s list of protected classes, and the facts from the removed chapter, having not been in the study as released, were considered the opinions of people with a political agenda.

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To add protections for teens bullied for their sexual orientation and gender identity was seen as a political issue, part of that imaginary “Gay Agenda”.

And while all the other groups could refer to the report to bolster their claim for the need for policies and staff and student awareness, the Gay teens had nothing to refer to other than what an individual or local group presented to school districts with the hope that after being supplied with the studies, statistics, and the missing chapter which was finally and reluctantly released due to a Freedom of Information filing, those in charge would be educated enough and open-minded enough to do what they would have been compelled to do had HW not have done what he did.

In my own experience, I have often wondered how many lives were lost through suicides in the twenty years between the release of the abridged report in 1989 and the Oklahoma City school district’s finally adding those students in 2009 after 12 years of advocacy for that, and how many lives were and are still being lost in school districts and states that cling to the idea that had it been important and desirable, that information would have been included in the released report.

To the majority, this was not an issue. It was not on the majority’s radar.

But, for those whose lives were affected by this, it was not a minor action.

If things do not affect us directly, we can easily dismiss and overlook them, and we are too quick to tell people, from our perspective, it is no big thing.

I know what it was like to advocate for actions that would save Gay teens’ lives.

I know the lame excuses used to avoid doing the right thing. I have hundreds of letters, emails, and other documentation in a large leather satchel in my bedroom closet.

And I know how, had this chapter not been hidden for political expediency, more Gay teens would have survived, fewer would not have seen only one way to escape the harassment and bullying they faced at the schools they had to attend every day of what became their whole lives by law.

So while we mourn the passing of a president who is being called a family man, a patriot, a gentle man, and one who respected his fellow man,  itwill only ring true to me if there is an asterisk after his name.

They are coming home

Before World War I, European countries were the heads of Empires.

The British Empire included India, Australia, Canada, and South Africa. The French Empire included parts of Africa. The Austria-Hungary Empire included not only Austria and Hungary but many of the Slavic countries, including Bosnia-Herzegovina.

In the Middle East the Ottoman Empire controlled parts of the Mid-East including Mesopotamia,  Constantinople, Baghdad, Damascus, Jerusalem, Mecca, and what is now known as Saudi-Arabia, By the beginning of the First World War, the Empire had become weak, and Britain had assumed control of Arabia, Qatar, and Oman.

By the end of the war the German Empire and the Austria-Hungary Empire, having been defeated, were divided among the winners as was the Ottoman Empire that just fell apart, with a little help from Britain.

Baron Rothschild, a supporter of the Zionist movement to establish a Jewish homeland for Jews being persecuted in Europe and Russia, pressured Lord Balfour, the Foreign Secretary of Britain, to establish a Jewish state in Palestine, and by November 2, 1917, Lord Balfour was able to inform Baron Rothschild:

“His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavors to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The post-war League of Nations divided up the former Ottoman Empire from a European perspective without any regard for the culture, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or interests of the peoples living there, similar to how the North and South American continents were divided by the countries in Europe for their financial advantage and peace among the warring European countries fighting for dominance and land claims without any regard for the culture, ethnicity, religious beliefs, or interests of the peoples living there either.

In both instances the locals would just have to accept and deal with the condition forced on them regardless how they might feel about it.

The divisions were made to guarantee chaos and conflict in the area that would benefit the two most powerful countries in the League, France and England. Control of the people and the oil to be had was aided by the infighting among groups of people who were carelessly mixed together, the disregard for historic boundaries, and reducing the historic power and dominance of local tribal leaders and warlords.

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The Israelis and the Palestinians are in a constant state of turmoil because of the Balfour Declaration, and the conflict there is the result of the preferential treatment that the U.S. now gives Israel compared to Palestine.

The Arab world retaliates by terrorizing us.

Just as in Central America, where the interference for the corporate benefit of United States companies has resulted in dictatorships supported by us and not the people living there, and has resulted in civil wars, drug cartels, and the fight for power, the Middle East game played over the decades is breaking down and resistance to leaders forced on the people and the boundaries that ignored culture, ethnicity, religious beliefs or interests of the peoples living there, has resulted in power wars which the Euro-centric countries attempt to control while ignoring the simple fact that they caused it, and this is the result.

The innocent people who simply want to live their lives are the collateral damage of the fighting in both areas, and, seeing no relief, have found moving away from the conditions forced on them by the two entities who, while responsible, take no responsibility is their only option.

Europe created the conditions in the Middle East, and those affected by them are fleeing to the countries responsible, while those countries, which had no problem with those conditions because it benefited them as long as they were kept at a distance, are not happy the chickens are coming home to roost.

Europe’s victims are heading to Europe to escape the conditions those countries created, and the people in Central America are heading our way for the same reason.

But both destinations are uncomfortable with dealing with the mess of their own creation. Far away the game playing was just fine. Up close means taking responsibility and dealing with it rather than leaving that to the empire builders’ victims.

And neither likes that.

(as a reminder of the U.S. culpability in Central America, I have attached an earlier blog:  http://www.quigleycartoon.com/?p=10472 )