Must watch it. When available, print it, store it, share it, send it to the clouds and cheer and cry as you fall into the rhythm of Hakeem Jeffries Alphabet speech, A to Z, schooling the GOP members of the House who needed to be reminded of the real values of this country.
The true "fork in the road" which McCarthy mentioned has already been reached and breached by his GOP. This man gave away the store -and the country - to the disruptive fascistic members of the GOP who held this country to ransom. Nope, the fork has already been reached after going through many prior wrong choices at increasingly dangerous forks.
Now seen clearly, in glaring light of day, is the approach of fascism, rampant, official, imprinted upon our nation by these demanding spoilers of the GOP who wish only to disrupt and dismantle our democracy and leave them in charge, the populace abandoned.
Yet there is hope. Not perfect, with its own band of dismantlers and disrupters of order, the Democratic House leader spoke eloquently, deeply, in catchy rhythm. He gave us a new mantra of the Alphabet, one which needs to be taught and caught in every classroom, read aloud at gatherings, by individuals. It is the essence of democracy. It is the gist of our ethos. It is the core of our country, a core that has been attacked in public, with increasingly vitriolic rhetoric, with Trump et al initially leading the treasonous charge.
Now Jeffries has given us a new, better, ABC, a reminder we all needed, the encouragement and assurance, that despite difficulties and planned attacks on our structure of government, a stated aim of the GOP, they will not prevail. Government will proceed, ransom will not be paid, and the country will defeat those enemies within.
Here is a piece of it. But much better than reading the text, watch it, listen, hear, fall into its rhythm, feel the small uplifting hint of fresh air, pushing away the static and stalled. Feel a wafting of clear air from that little bird of hope as it flies towards us and stays with us.
“We’ll always put American values over autocracy, benevolence over bigotry, the constitution over the cult, democracy over demagogues, economic opportunity over extremism, freedom over fascism.”
Jeffries continued by saying, “Reason over racism, substance over slander, triumph over tyranny, understanding over ugliness, voting rights over voter suppression, working families over the well-connected, xenial over xenophobia, yes we can over you can’t do it and zealous representation over zero sum confrontation.”
However, none of this will come to fruition unless we, the people, work towards that victory, towards the safeguarding and maintaining of our democracy - "of the people, for the people, by the people". The words of a member of an original Republican Party, a party which was on the right side of 'right' rather than the extreme, hate pushing denial of rights 'right' to which they now adhere.
Let us all remember that we are all people, Americans one and all. No matter the original country of origin of a predecessor, length of living in this country, or color of skin or mode of worship, or gender, or ethnicity - whatever people look towards with hate and violence. Let us defeat this horrible push towards censorship of books, of invading libraries and classrooms to rip away at knowledge. The knowledge, so bitterly learned and etched into our souls- that those who burn books will eventually burn people.
We are in for a rough time ahead, heavy seas as the saying goes. We have problems which must be addressed lest we literally destroy ourselves.
As it was so clearly put - "we might have come over on different ships - but we are all now in the same boat."
We are all subject to the same fate and conditions we ourselves enable, allow and create.
In Judaism there is a prayer and a song which translates to thus:
"How good and pleasant it is to have 'brothers' sit together.
Hineh ma tov, oo'manayim, shevet achim gam yachad."
AMEN
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