Friday Homestead Dispatch

Week Number Twenty-Four

“I’ve just never liked bullies, and I don’t understand people who do. It’s really not that hard. I wish more people would see that it’s not hard to stand up.” — Ken Casey, The Dropkick Murphys

As Jennifer Rubin writes in her post dated yesterday, We all can use this Independence Day to rouse our fellow Americans from their stupor, recall for them the offenses of our modern tyrant, and summon them to embrace the spirit of the Declaration (“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”).

We can remind them that generations of Americans have pledged their Lives, Fortunes and sacred Honor for the right to live as free citizens, not helpless subjects of a mad king. And we might then enlist them in the immense task of peacefully recapturing our democracy and reforming all branches of government. Then we might be worthy of the greatest inheritance one might receive: the privilege of being a free people in a country capable of transcending its faults.

In Congress, July 4, 1776

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

And let us not forget the U.S. Bill of Rights, ratified December 15, 1791.

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Jay Kuo writes “On this Independence Day, I’ll be reflecting on why we broke from rule by a tyrant in the first place. I’ll remember how our demands for basic due process and no militarization of our cities and towns became unstoppable rally cries that fueled our cause. That hard-fought war proved that it is not, and it is never, too late to resist, however we each choose to do so.”

He goes on to write that Abrego García’s torture and abuse at the hands of a government that struck a commercial agreement to house migrants is a dark warning about the Trump regime’s future plans. Rather than recognize and draw back from the potential for error, mistreatment and even death, the White House is doubling down. It is currently speaking to several governments, including some with horrifying human rights records, to accept more immigrants.

Meanwhile, it is building domestic concentration camps in places like the swamps of Florida, outsourcing the management of processing and detention to red state governors, each eager to prove they are harsher than the next. And it will fill those camps with immigrants who, like Abrego García, have no criminal records and have been contributing members of society for years, sometimes decades.

Criminals flaunting the Rule of Law

The mind and heart reel at the inhumanity, until it becomes clear that this is the very point. CECOT and camps like “Alligator Alcatraz” are meant to be human zoos. The American public has already been conditioned to accept absurdities, such as that all immigrants are gang members, drug dealers, rapists and murderers. And bit by bit, we are being led to accept the next new horror, until the horrors become atrocities.

When asked how it was possible the German people ultimately allowed the Nazi Party to rise to power, to take the nation to war, and ultimately to commit the Holocaust, we need not look further that what is happening in our name, using our tax dollars, this very moment in the U.S.

On that note, as you know, the BUB passed gas yesterday with most Republicans deciding Democracy’s not for them, all while gobbling down on an elderly golfer’s tiny putter. *rump is gleeful as this bill enshrines tax cuts for the rich while soaking the poor, will force millions off their health insurance due to Medicaid cuts, sends a boatload of money to ICE, is a disaster for renewable energy — and the economy, gives tax breaks for gun silencers, increases military spending, cuts food assistance, and jacks up the deficit.

A summation of what is now happening in our country is articulated quite succinctly by Scott Galloway where he says, “Rights and Democracy have become purely a function of how wealthy you are in America. The wealthiest 1% are protected by the law, but they're not bound by it. And the bottom 99 are bound by the law, but not protected by it.”

And one more upbeat note from Mona Charen writing in the Bulwark:

Populism, nativism, racism, and frankly, stupidity, are sprinkled liberally throughout our history. But they are subtexts, not the main story. We will transcend MAGA as we transcended the Know Nothings, the Confederacy, the anarchists, the McCarthyites, and the Wallaceites (both Henry and George)—not to mention the abuses of the British Empire more than two centuries ago. On Independence Day, I will sincerely celebrate a nation that, despite its demagogues and fools, was capable of producing an Abraham Lincoln, a Franklin Roosevelt, a Frederick Douglass, a Wendell Willkie, a Martin Luther King Jr., a Learned Hand, a Dwight Eisenhower, and a Herbert Hoover (that’s right, for saving millions from starvation after World War I).

Adam Smith said “There’s a great deal of ruin in a nation,” and we’ve had too many recent occasions to rue that reality. But this week we need to remember the nobility of this nation. There’s a great deal of that too.

So, in between yelling at the clouds and processing the destruction of Democracy, I managed to wrap up a couple of new pieces.

This one is Yellow Zoot, 12” x 11.5” x 3”.

And this one, possibly spoken for by a friend, is New Mexico Folded Camp, also 12” x 11.5” x 3”.

And now…