“Liberty is the breath of life to nations.”
Tag Archives: freedom
Memorial Day 2025
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Words
Several years ago actress turned animal rights activist Brigitte Bardot found herself in legal trouble with French authorities. The former screen siren openly condemned the Islamic practice of animal slaughter during the Aid al-Kabir holiday. She’d been in such a predicament before – several times. French law doesn’t actually forbid disparaging religious ideology, but it looks down sharply upon it, as it can be considered slander or worse, a conduit to hate-obsessed violence.
It’s surprising, considering France fought hard against Nazi occupation during World War II. One tenet of Nazism is that anyone who speaks out against the government is deemed a traitor. But, short of slander or threats of violence, criticism of governing bodies and religion is free speech. Imprisoning anyone, or even threatening to levy a monetary penalty for such views, runs counter to that.
All of it strikes hard for me – and other writers and artists – here in the U.S., as we witness ongoing assaults on various forms of free speech. Book bans remain a primary source of concern. And with Republicans in charge of the White House and both houses of Congress, the attacks continue. Social extremists have always been opposed to any viewpoint that doesn’t conform to their standards – whether it’s coming from the left or the right. The voices of moderates seem to get lost in the chaos.
Recently the U.S. government – under pressure from the Trump administration – compiled and presented a list of words that are forbidden on federal web sites and other documentation. They include such terms as “biologically male”, “clean energy”, “inequality”, and “woman”. This is real! I have a tendency towards creating outrageous stories, but I’m not intoxicated or deranged. Well…not yet.
Regardless, the list definitely isn’t a manifestation of liberal outrage at the most right-wing president in decades. It’s a result of years of conservative ideology designed to put people and institutions in categories and re-enshrine bigotry and hatred into the American conscience. The leftward shift in culture and politics in the U.S. beginning in the late 1950s eventually met the hostility of Reaganesque antipathy towards anything viewed as different or the other. The Trump era is the culmination of it all.
Those in formerly marginalized groups who also voted for Trump and his ilk shouldn’t be surprised – but they are. For example, Cuban-Americans voted overwhelmingly for Trump, as they often have for the Republican Party. As Cuba has been under communist rule since 1959, those fleeing the country have been given special protection from American law. The same luxury hasn’t been granted to people fleeing war and violence in other Latin American nations, such as El Salvador and Guatemala. However, the Trump Administration’s efforts to reform immigration law have started to impact thousands of Cuban immigrants. Now, Cuban-Americans have the audacity to be horrified at the betrayal. Remember the adage: be careful what you wish for; you might just get it.
We also need to recall the words of Martin Niemöller:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out – because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out – because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me – and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Trump and his cronies appear to be going after anyone who doesn’t fit the narrow definition of who he is. His hypocrisy is glaring. He never outwardly espoused any religious fervor until he first ran for president, but now says Christian ideology should be taught in schools. If he believes in true biblical content, then consider the Christian Bible’s 7th commandment: “Thou shalt not commit adultery.” Exodus 20:14.
There are others.
“I am a stranger and an alien residing among you; give me property among you for a burying place, so that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” Genesis 23:4
“The sinless one among you, go first. Throw the stone.” John 8:6-11
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.” Mark 12:30-31
I’m sure this would be too much for him to handle. It’s too much even for some devout Christians to handle!
Whatever words someone wants to use, they shouldn’t be frightened into compliance. Russia, Iran and North Korea do that. No truly democratic society wants to echo such autocratic leadership.
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Antarctica tells Trump what to do with his tariffs
From Munguin’s New Republic, the truth must be spoken!
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March 2025 Literary Calendar
Events in the month of March for writers and readers
National March into Literacy Month
National Reading Month
Small Press Month
- March 1-7 – National Ghostwriters Week
- March 1 – Fredric Chopin’s Birthday; International Hug a Librarian Day; Plan a Solo Vacation Day; World Compliment Day
- March 2-8 – Read an E-Book Week; Returned Borrowed Books Week
- March 2 – Theodore Seuss Geisel’s (Dr. Seuss) Birthday; Read Across America Day
- March 3 – Alexander Graham Bell’s Birthday; I Want You to be Happy Day; If Pets Had Thumbs Day
- March 4 – National Grammar Day
- March 8 – International Women’s Day
- March 9 – Amerigo Vespucci’s Birthday; Get Over It Day
- March 10 – International Day of Awesomeness
- March 11 – Worship of Tools Day
- March 14 – Albert Einstein’s Birthday; Johann Strauss’ Birthday; National Write Your Story Day
- March 15 – Everything You Think Is Wrong Day; Ides of March
- March 16-22 – World Folktales and Fables Week
- March 16 – Everything You Do Is Right Day; Freedom of Information Day
- March 17 – St. Patrick’s Day
- March 19 – International Read to Me Day; Let’s Laugh Day
- March 20 – First Day of Spring (Northern Hemisphere); First Day of Fall (Southern Hemisphere); Extraterrestrial Abductions Day; International Day of Happiness; World Storytelling Day
- March 21 – World Poetry Day
- March 22 – As Young as You Feel Day
- March 24 – Harry Houdini’s Birthday
- March 26 – Robert Frost’s Birthday; Tennessee Williams’ Birthday
- March 29 – Smoke and Mirrors Day
- March 30 – Vincent van Gogh’s Birthday; I Am in Control Day; Pencil Day
- March 31 – Johann Sebastian Bach’s Birthday; René Descartes’ Birthday
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In Memoriam – Jimmy Carter, 1924-2024
“We have a tendency to exalt ourselves and to dwell on the weaknesses and mistakes of others. I have come to realize that in every person there is something fine and pure and noble, along with a desire for self-fulfillment. Political and religious leaders must attempt to provide a society within which these human attributes can be nurtured and enhanced.”
Image: Dave Granlund
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Self-Inflicted
“When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross.”
Sinclair Lewis, 1935
I had a certain sensation deep inside of me; the same kind of feeling when I know something dramatic – either good or bad – is about to happen. This time it was bad, and I almost felt sick. Donald Trump has been reelected to the U.S. presidency. He becomes only the second president in U.S. history to win a second term that didn’t immediately follow the first. He also has the dubious distinction of being the first indicted criminal to be elected. Little could be stranger or sadder for the American people. I suppose, though, that too many people drank that proverbial Kool-Aid offered by the Republican despot; a man who openly admires the likes of Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-Un; who has advocated violence against others; who has threatened to imprison anyone who disagrees with him; who incited a riot nearly four years ago; and who has demonstrated no true respect for average, working Americans.
I am embarrassed by and disgusted with many of my fellow Americans who helped put Trump into office. The Democratic Party, however, really has no one but themselves to blame for this chaos. Their leadership stood by as Joe Biden and Bernie Sanders ran for president in 2020. With all due respect to those two gentlemen, their time had come and gone. The window to run for and win the U.S. presidency is small. I felt Biden and Sanders would have better served the country by giving speeches and writing books about the value and importance of democracy and how people like Trump pose the worst threat to our constitutional freedoms.
For the Democrats, the 2020 presidential race began with the most diverse slate of candidates – and ended with the same tired old figures that traditionally represented both parties: old White men. Now understand I’m a mostly White male and have no qualms about it. But this nation boasts too varied a population to rely upon the same types of people to lead us.
And it’s not that the U.S. isn’t ready for a female president. We’re way past ready. It’s just that the Democrats (and the Republicans for that matter) have never chosen the right women to lead them. I’ve always said Hillary Clinton was too divisive a figure. While I loved Bill “Who’s Your Daddy” Clinton, I personally never cared for Hillary. And, although Kamala Harris made history by becoming the first female vice-president in U.S. history, she didn’t do enough to separate herself from Biden.
In 1993 Canada elected its first female prime minister, Kim Campbell, and highly patriarchal and staunchly Roman Catholic México just elected its first female (and Jewish) president, Claudia Scheinbaum. Thus far, eighteen other women either have been elected or ascended to the highest office in their respective countries in the Western Hemisphere:
Jeanine Áñez, Bolivia, 2019-20
Rosalía Arteaga, Ecuador, 1997
Michelle Bachelet, Chile, 2006-10 and 2014-18
Dina Boluarte, Peru, since 2022
Sylvanie Burton, Dominica, since 2023
Xiomara Castro, Honduras, since 2022
Violeta Chamorro, Nicaragua, 1990-97
Eugenia Charles, Dominican Republic, 1980-95
Laura Chinchilla, Costa Rica, 2010-14
Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, Argentina, 2007-15
Lidia Gueiler Tejadam, Bolivia, 1979-80
Mireya Moscoso, Panama, 1999-2004
Mia Mottley, Barbados, since 2018
Ertha Pascal-Trouillot, Haiti, 1990-91 (acting president)
Michèle Pierre-Louis, Haiti, 2008-09
Dilma Rousseff, Brazil, 2014-16
Portia Simpson-Miller, Jamaica, 2006-07 and 2012-16
Claudette Werleigh, Haiti, 1995-96
Trump does not represent me – never has and never will. He has proclaimed total disrespect for people who aren’t exactly like him. And I’m certainly not like him. I’m not a wealthy, full-blooded Caucasian womanizer who cheated on his taxes and has disdain for the American military. I feel that he’s a genuine threat to free speech and the right to vote, but – like most conservatives – has the full support of gun rights advocates. This latter band of extremists has always placed the value of firearms above free speech and the right to vote – and certainly above the lives of human beings.
One of my concerns with Trump’s return to the White House is that he will implement the so-called Project 2025 – a federal policy agenda created by the Heritage Foundation, a far-right conservative outfit that is a borderline hate group. Many officials in Trump’s first administration took part in the project’s creation, which demands a complete overhaul of the government based on staunchly conservative ideology. That philosophy features opposition to the usual causes: abortion and reproductive freedom and queer rights, but also immigration and racial equity. Moreover, Project 2025 calls for unwarranted surveillance on specific individuals; using force to quell protestors; and targeting journalists who they deem enemies of the state. This might sound familiar to those schooled in global political history. They’re the same kind of tactics the Nazis and the former Soviet Union used on its own civilians. Argentina pursued the same agenda during its “Dirty War”, and North Korea is doing it now.
I don’t know what’s next for America, but I see nothing good on the horizon. I’m certain my conservative friends and relatives will assume I’m being paranoid, even hysterical. Yet I felt similar sensations of foreboding when George W. Bush became president in 2000. And I was right. The U.S. ended up both in war and a recession.
I’m almost certain it will happen again.
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Happy Fourth of July 2024!
“Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one’s thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.”
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Juneteenth 2024
“It took abolitionists, Quakers, all kinds of folks to help and lobby to get the slaves freed. I truly believe we can do so much more together than apart.”
Opal Lee, “Grandmother” of Juneteenth
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Memorial Day 2024
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In Force
Once again my home state of Texas has proven that it’s run by a pack of extremist right-wing morons. In the latest attack on individual rights from the gang that claims to cherish personal freedom, State Attorney General Ken Paxton has demanded that a woman named Kate Cox must go through with her current pregnancy – a pregnancy her own doctor has already said could be detrimental to her health. The fetus already has a confirmed disorder, and proceeding with the pregnancy could render Cox infertile. More frightening, though, is that it could kill her. She’s been to a local emergency room more than once over the past several weeks. Now she’s left the state to have the abortion her doctor recommended. Her whereabouts remain unknown – and for good reason.
When they first established these medieval abortion laws over a year ago, the self-righteous Paxton and Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared they would prosecute both any woman who had an abortion that didn’t meet their limited approval guidelines and anyone who aided in the procedure. That means anyone who so much as gave a ride to a woman to an abortion clinic or funded the procedure could be fined imprisoned. Yes! I’m not making up this shit! Someone please remind me what century we’re in right now.
Cox was so desperate she filed an appeal to the Texas State Supreme Court. But, of course, that all-Republican body denied her request. Once again, the woman’s life was in danger. Her doctor said as much! But these sanctimonious politicians have announced clearly they think they know better. They fully believe their comprehension of the law transfers to the medical arena.
I honestly feel they’re suffering from perception delusion – a genuine psychological disorder in which an individual believes their perception of the world around them is real and authentic; that they – and only they – understand what’s going on and everyone else is unaware of the truth. It’s akin to schizophrenia.
Let me put it in the more common vernacular: they’re fucked up.
It’s absolutely appalling these people think they know better about someone’s health and medical condition than that individual’s physician. Many medical practitioners are already leaving the state of Texas because of the abortion issue. Not just abortion providers! Many obstetricians and gynecologists, as well as those in other disciplines, don’t want to take the chance their medical expertise will be questioned and vilified.
Quite frankly, if I had the money, I would have funded both Cox’s voyage out of Texas and her procedure. I would have even funded her legal defense should the state come after her, as if she was a drug trafficker – which I’m sure they will!
In the 1960s, a group of women calling themselves the “The Jane Collective” established an underground network of abortion providers in the U.S. Operating much like the “Underground Railroad” of the 19th century, the “Janes” worked with known abortionists throughout the nation to help women in the midst of distressed pregnancies. In the spring of 1969, I was 5 years old, and my parents introduced me to a young woman named Carla*. I remember her as a petite, strawberry blonde who told me, at one point, that – if she ever had a little boy – she hoped he’d be like me. She stayed with us for a couple of days before she inexplicable (to me) disappeared. We lived in a two-bedroom apartment above a garage behind a house owned by my father’s older sister and her husband. It was where I grew up, until we moved to suburban Dallas at the end of 1972. I was about 12 or 13 when I remembered Carla and asked my mother about her. Who was she and why was she there? My mother – who never held back the truth – told me everything. Carla was about 18 and she was pregnant – and she didn’t want her parents to know. One of my mother’s female colleagues was part of the “Jane” group, and my very progressive mother – a woman who once slapped a Roman Catholic nun who had slapped her younger brother and told a priest she would NOT have a bunch of children per the Church’s directive – agreed to help. She had to talk my father into it. Carla stayed with us for a couple of days before she was spirited away. We never saw her again and never knew what became of her.
Around the turn of the century, when I was in my 30s, I was having lunch with my parents one Sunday afternoon, when the subject of abortion arose. I brought up Carla again. This time my father was in the room and substantiated my mother’s recounting of the events that spring so long ago. They both wondered what had happened to Carla, and so did I. I can only hope she was able to get her life in order and go on to have the family she might have wanted.
No one has the right to dictate what someone does with their own body and health. That’s why I’m so opposed to male circumcision, for example, which is a similar issue. Everyone has the right to the dignity of determining their own fate in life. Neither politics nor religion should ever interfere with that.
*Name changed.
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Chief Writing Wolf 