Social media has been filled with lies, bombast, and threats since the FBI arrived at Mar-a-Largo with a search warrant authorized by Republican officials at the FBI and DOJ
Proud Boys, MAGA, the extremes of emotionality and lack of critical thought, have been foaming at the mouth about law enforcement holding one man legally accountable for his actions. It’s a temper tantrum brandishing AK’s while sucking on bullets.
GOP members of Congress prove they are children of the Father of Lies by doing just that — dissembling, projecting, blaming everyone for the FBI’s search except the man whose actions made it necessary. Of course, they never claim he is innocent either. They know he isn’t.
What they rail against is accountability — his and theirs. Their temper tantrums when held accountable are not impressive. They're just a refusal to grow up.
In an all too typical inversion they recast what responsible adults are called to - accepting responsibility — into being persecuted. As always, the bullies and abusers, the liars and betrayers, the grifters and frauds, dress up in victimhood.
They beat their chests and wail on every right-wing propaganda source — Fox, Truth Social, Breitbart, etc.…
Their lies feed the fires of the extreme, of those who threaten violence. But then they always have.
If the GOP actually cared about our lives, about our children’s lives, about our freedom to live without fear, they would have stopped lying decades ago. They would have stopped race baiting and their War on Women. They would have stopped their campaign against the LGBTQ community. They would have created good economic and health care policy. They would have enacted gun safety laws.
But they do not. They won’t. They are a failed moral enterprise. They don’t do policy. They don’t do good governance. They do lies and manipulation while dangling the threat of violence over our heads. That sword is never far from our throats.
The Right to Childhood Should be untouchable.
Los Intocables / The Untouchables" by Erik Ravelo at Fabrica is a campaign to raise awareness on the right to childhood and the factors that threaten it.
Ask women. Four of us are murdered every day. Ask Black Americans, Native Americans, the LGBTQ community, Jews, Muslims. Hate crimes continue to spike. Ask parents and grandparents who wonder if their children will return safely from school. Ask churches, synagogues and mosques. Gun violence is an epidemic.
None of us go to the theater or public gatherings without a little back brain question going on. A question that asks if now will be when gunfire finds us.
The implicit threat of violence is repeatedly made explicit in blood, lives, and headlines.
They want us to be afraid. They want us to cower, to go silent, to cease. All too often they want us to cease to exist.
The reasons are multiple — entitlement, racism, sexism, and more. But it is all fundamentally rooted in cowardice. They are afraid. Afraid of their own discomfort with a changing reality. Afraid to be without the power to impose control. They want the freedom to do whatever they wish while denying us the same. For them — equality is a threat.
Absolute power the goal.
And they cannot have it.
That is why they are having temper tantrums. That is why they are suddenly demanding the defunding of the FBI. That is why they are threatening our lives. That is why they are threatening democracy and the very rule of law.
We’re winning. Decency, democracy, hope, equality and justice are winning. Women in red state Kansas shut down forced birthers. The passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, a crucial step in saving this beautiful blue world, is winning. The passage of the first gun safety law in 30 years is winning. The GOP voted against all of it. The GOP and its pawns cannot handle any of it.
Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent and cowardly. No matter how many guns they have and how much camo they put on, they will always be both.
That does not make them less dangerous. That does not make the threat they pose less.
It only means we are called to find our own courage. To rise and safeguard all that we love.
I know how hard that can be.
I grew up with violence. Stood up against it the first time when I was only nine. It would not be the last time I tried to save my mom and siblings. The violence lasted for years. So did the fear. I know what it is like to wonder if the ones you love will live through another day, to know if you too will survive. I know what it is like to wait for the next blow to fall.
And yet we made it through. We fought our way through.
This is another one of those times.
We can be frightened. What we can’t do is give the small twisted human beings who threaten all of us what they want.
We cannot back down.
We cannot stop standing for what is right.
We cannot cower.
That is what they want. They will not get it.
They will ultimately fail. Such people always do.
Never give up hope or lose faith.
Together, we are going to wade in the water and make good trouble.
Together, we will rise into better days.
Our children’s and grandchildren’s futures depend upon it.
We who believe in freedom cannot rest.
