The different groups fighting to keep a semblance of democracy need to forge alliances. What is meant to do this? Like the show Forged in Fire, these groups need to forge a billet to combine their fights into a cohesive group. In forging a layering of different types of steel is welded together to form a billet which is then heated and pressed out to begin the making of an object. The array of justice groups (climate, juvenile, economic, and others) fall into the category of social justice. These layers of dissatisfaction need to come together to create a cohesive attack on those who wish to dismantle the democratic system now available before one by one they are destroyed.
There is a concerted effort to turn the clock back to a time when marriage equality was non-existent; nor was civil rights, nor the rights of women, slavery reigned, and the laws favored the white male land-owning patriarchy even more than it does today. Voices need to be raised in unison against this march to Gilead or any other dystopian universe to which American society is headed. The attacks come in many forms of the laws enacted most recently. Think about the anti-trans laws, anti-voting rights laws, anti-choice laws (put up as anti-abortion laws), and the banning of books.
On a larger front parents, teachers, elected officials and interested parties need to look at the disservice these laws and actions may have on children and families. Anti-gay laws lead to bullying and suicide. The destruction of voting rights aimed at people of color disenfranchise not only makes voting harder for this group but other marginalized communities. Economic justice initiatives uplift all and make the country greater.
Today we’re challenged to not make Margaret Atwood’s Gilead a reality. How we do this is by forging a coalition of love for all groups attacked. Women need to understand following the loud voices against gays, Asians, immigrants, and people of color will eventually if enacted come back to ensnare them also.
Do you not think that if the insurrection had been successful more restrictive laws would be passed? It Can’t Happen Here is a cautionary tale of what might become the America of the future. Sinclair Lewis presented a picture of what society would look like. Some points from this 1935 novel include women being removed from the workforce; black folks being denied jobs higher than teaching elementary school; turning Congress into an advisory body and making the Supreme Court unable to decide against laws and actions of the president or his minions. Relegating people to the Dark Ages.
The poor, disenfranchised, women, people of color, Asians, and immigrants need all of us to stand with them to not allow rights gained to be abolished. If we don’t do this we are headed to an ignominious future with the great democratic experiment in shambles. The so-called beacon of democracy is now out. No group is in this fight alone unless it chooses to be so. SOCIAL JUSTICE is the call in all its myriad of forms.
Think about it all the separate things people are fighting to change involve people. Climate, juvenile, gays, people of color, Asians, criminal, women’s rights, and economics all fall under this large umbrella of SOCIAL JUSTICE because they all involve people. Now is the time to realize we can no longer stand aside and claim the actions taken by those who wish to deny freedoms to specific groups that it doesn’t affect each one of us. Poor drinking water affects our children of the future as does killing the planet. Poverty affects all in that it leads to crime, suicide, murders, and drug use. Anti-gay laws force people to return or not come out of the closet, leading to bullying and possibly suicide. Anti-abortion laws or more accurately ANTI-CHOICE laws force women to bear children that might be a result of rape which includes incest.
Is this the society we want to live in or have our children and grandchildren inherit?