A New Civil Rights Movement: Congressional Intervention Needed to Protect Voting Rights

@JaniceOCG @TexasHDC inspired @andreachalupa & @sarahkendzior of @gaslitnation to explore the type of federal intervention needed to protect #VotingRights in call for New Civil Rights Movement.  Join Thurs., 8 pm ET, from 1/13/22, “If America Fails?:  The Coming Tyranny.”

Chalupa said “We need a new civil rights movement because we’re rapidly losing the hard fought achievements of the last civil rights movement with the Supreme Court and Republicans gutting the Voting Rights Act. This is all deliberate to force America to become a hostage state, just like Missouri, just like, increasingly, Texas and Florida…”

Last summer, as Texas House Democrats were preparing to fly to Washington, D.C., to oppose new Jim Crow voting legislation in their own state, and fight for voting rights at the national level, Gaslit Nation produced this segment [00:00 – 25:40].  In it, Andrea Chalupa calls for a New Civil Rights Movement and here we are six months later, with activists around the country on hunger strikes to fight on behalf of our right to vote, the right to have our voices heard, the right to have our opinions on national affairs, in fact, counted.  Listen in, read the summarized comments below or the linked transcript, as Kendzior and Chalupa offer their ideas on how to move the system toward the will of the majority.  Also, consider where we are today and what role you might play in #ProtectingDemocracy.

Chalupa said “We need a new civil rights movement because we’re rapidly losing the hard fought achievements of the last civil rights movement with the Supreme Court and Republicans gutting the Voting Rights Act. This is all deliberate to force America to become a hostage state, just like Missouri, just like, increasingly, Texas and Florida…

“…the colleagues of Manchin and Sinema in the United States Congress must commit to good trouble themselves by taking on Sinema directly, take on Manchin directly…It’s time to fight now, just like the giants who came before us.”

“It’s a civil rights emergency, Chalupa continued, “and we have to follow in the footsteps now of John Lewis, who said, ‘You need to commit to good trouble,’ and that’s what these Democrats in Texas are doing. They’ve committed to good trouble. They are following in the footsteps of John Lewis. That’s the only way we’re going to protect our democracy and move our country forward and break through…the colleagues of Manchin and Sinema in the United States Congress must commit to good trouble themselves by taking on Sinema directly, take on Manchin directly, sit in their offices with your staff and confront them directly. Out their puppet masters directly. Push for your party to openly reject, as a policy platform, any money from Exxon and other dark puppet masters of Manchin and Sinema. Be bold. Be fearless. It’s time to fight now, just like the giants who came before us.”

“The only thing I really wanted to add to that,” said Sarah Kendzior, is the new civil rights movement is here and has been here and a lot of the Republican reaction and certainly the election of Trump and the acquiescence of the media to promote him and to ensure that win was in reaction to growing civil rights activism, particularly around racist police brutality, but also towards the use of social media to enlighten people about the actual history of the United States, about atrocities that were basically buried from view from White eyes, at least, not taught in high schools, not taught even in colleges…

“We have people out there fighting, we have people out there documenting,” said Sarah Kendzior. “We have activists like William Barber, like Bree Newsome, like Stacey Abrams, who understand very well the stakes here and are able to link our trajectory as a country founded on genocide and slavery, and also simultaneously founded with ideals and a rejection of monarchy and all of these other things…”

“We have people out there fighting, we have people out there documenting,” she continued. “We have activists like William Barber, like Bree Newsome, like Stacey Abrams, who understand very well the stakes here and are able to link our trajectory as a country founded on genocide and slavery, and also simultaneously founded with ideals and a rejection of monarchy and all of these other things…

“I mean, this is the thing that I think people struggle with, especially how it’s taught to kids in schools, it’s just that the principles did not match the practices. I think one of the things that truly terrifies people isn’t an explicit, cartoonish villain, but the fact that people that say good things, or that might be nice to you, or that might be nice or good to other people, or that have high ideals, will go on to commit or cover up incredible atrocities.

“…the fact that people that say good things, or that might be nice to you, or that might be nice or good to other people, or that have high ideals, will go on to commit or cover up incredible atrocities…That is the history of America,” said Kendzior, “that’s the history of every country. We’re not exceptional in this regard.”

“That is the history of America,” said Kendzior, “that’s the history of every country. We’re not exceptional in this regard. That hypocrisy, that complicity, that willingness to stand around and be a bystander and let other people suffer, as long as you think it’s not going to be you, that is the history of the world, and it’s killing us. It’s killing the world as we know it. We see it in relation to the growing rise of autocracy and to the climate crisis and the refusal of officials and powerful actors, corporate actors, to do anything to stop it, and the media manipulation and normalization of mass death, mass suffering, the commodification of that.

“There is a big, I think, civil rights movement that understands all this stuff and is bringing it to public attention,” said Kendzior, “and that is why the republicans are so aggressive in these voting rights restriction laws, in their desire to make sure that people who do have a sense of justice, a sense of historical perspective, and a desire to serve the whole public, to serve everybody, are kept out of office and cannot maintain power and cannot change the power balance, which has always shifted in my lifetime towards the wealthiest and increasingly towards a very, very narrow group of wealthy and elite and well-connected actors…

“I definitely see citizens pushing back in the ways that they can, but it’s so rare that we really see elected officials taking a bold action in the way that these Texas House Democrats have.”

“I definitely see citizens pushing back in the ways that they can, but it’s so rare that we really see elected officials taking a bold action in the way that these Texas House Democrats have. You’re exactly right that that’s what we need more of, and it needs to be directed at the other officials who do have the ability to make profound change in this country and are choosing not to. They’re choosing to deny people the right to vote, they’re choosing to uphold the filibuster,” Kendzior concluded.

“To be completely clear,” said Chalupa, “when I’m calling for a new civil rights movement, I’m not speaking to Black/Brown communities who are living in a constant state of a civil rights movement in order to protect themselves, protect their children. The whole 1619 Project by Nikole Hannah-Jones that terrifies the far-right, that terrifies the Robert E. Lees of today, that’s the story of progress in America as told through Black and Brown communities defending themselves through constant, continuous movements for civil rights…Who I’m speaking to directly is the federal government, is Joe Biden and every single person around him, including his family, every single member of Congress, their staff, their family, their assistants, their assistants’ assistants. It’s the federal intervention that is needed. That is what we need when I say we need a new civil rights movement…

“Greater voting rights for all is ultimately unifying for the country because it ensures that the majority voice is heard and that we’re not suffering and trapped for God knows how long under a tyranny of the minority,” Chalupa explained. “The only way you achieve that, as has happened throughout history, is federal intervention. You need to have the president, his entire team, the staunchest allies across both chambers of Congress fighting tooth and nail for civil rights. That’s how you get a huge wave of intervention, progress and hope. We’re not going to get that without substantial effort and commitment and good trouble in the halls of Congress by the elected officials and their staff themselves. It is time for the good trouble to be spread to the highest offices of the land, or we’re cooked.”

“Greater voting rights for all is ultimately unifying for the country because it ensures that the majority voice is heard and that we’re not suffering and trapped for God knows how long under a tyranny of the minority,” Chalupa explained. “The only way you achieve that, as has happened throughout history, is federal intervention. You need to have the president, his entire team, the staunchest allies across both chambers of Congress fighting tooth and nail for civil rights.

Building on her experience as a Missouri resident, Kendzior said, “…It is a very necessary federal intervention to protect the rights of people living under oppressive state legislatures…We do not deserve to have our rights taken away, whether it’s our policy preferences or our votes themselves. We absolutely don’t deserve this and we’re at the point where, yes, we do need the Biden administration to step in, because we’ve lost our democracy on a microcosm level and we’re about to lose it on a national level in 2022-2024. That is the road we’ve been going down a long time.”

“…we’re at the point where, yes, we do need the Biden administration to step in, because we’ve lost our democracy on a microcosm level and we’re about to lose it on a national level in 2022-2024.”

— Sarah Kendzior

See the Full Transcript here.

— LMO

“After examining the latest voter suppression situation in the United States, we do a deep dive into mercenary Erik Prince. After committing war crimes in Iraq, this Blackwater founder has been building up his ‘blood money’ business, including teaming up with Russia and Gulf States to make dirty deals involving the 2016 election and now attempting to build a private army in Ukraine.  — Gaslit Nation

LISTEN to 00:00-25:40. | Prince of Darkness | Gaslit Nation, a podcast by Sarah Kendzior and Andrea Chalupa | 7/14/2021