Tag: Voting rights

People have a difficult time grasping a simple truth: every time the right of women to vote in national elections has come before the Supreme Court, the Court has voted against it. Despite a national movement that started in 1848 at Seneca Falls and continued with annual meetings of National Women’s Rights Conventions from 1850 onward, courts in America have rarely ruled in favor of women’s rights; the Supreme Court has never ruled in favor of a woman’s right to vote; never.

Even when women were arrested and imprisoned; when they went on hunger strikes and guards force-fed them like modern day prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, the courts remained harsh and unforgiving.

It took a constitutional amendment (the 19th) passed by the votes of loving brothers, fathers, grandfathers, husbands, sons, and boyfriends in state legislatures across the country for women to make their successful end-run around the opposition to female voting that infused the Supreme Court; it wasn’t until 1920 that every woman in America secured the right to walk into polling places to vote in national elections. They never looked back.

Voting rights for women became a settled legal matter in 1922 when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously that the procedures demanded by the Constitution were properly followed. The 19th amendment would never be reversed — short of another constitutional amendment. That amendment can never come now that women are voters.

It’s been ninety-six years. There are women walking around today who were alive when their right to vote was granted. It wasn’t that long ago. Hillary Clinton has sometimes reminded us that her late mother was born on June 4, 1919 — the same day the voting amendment passed its final legislative hurdle in the United States Congress.

Before I explain just what it was that Hillary did, here’s some background; a little history, Billy Lee-style:

After the end of the Civil War, which traumatized the nation with its toll of 750,000 deaths and millions maimed and wounded — 1 of every 13 soldiers who served became an amputee — something worse happened. The men in America who survived but lost their way of life to war, many of them, became demoralized and angry; they spiraled downward. Some who managed to keep their limbs continued to fight; they went to war against the ”redskins” in genocidal campaigns that decimated our native populations.

But other men — I would say most of the survivors — went on a drinking binge. The binge lasted decades. Some men drank themselves to death. The tranquilizers and antidepressants that might have saved many hadn’t yet been invented.

Opiates were available, yes, and many ex-soldiers purchased them in bottled elixirs sold by traveling salesmen. But alcohol was the remedy of choice for men whose minds and missing limbs exuded the chronic, excruciating pain of amputations and the memories of horrors. Alcoholic spirits were cheap and easy to buy. The excessive use of alcohol and the inevitable abuse of women that always seemed to follow became a national epidemic; a cultural disgrace. It lasted decades; some say it has never really ended.

The bullying of minorities, native people, and women — cruelty often directed against the weak and defenseless — became a way of life for many veterans who suffered post-traumatic-stress-disorder, which no one understood at the time. The vocabulary folks needed to even discuss the dynamics of this personal degradation by war was not available like it is today. For southern soldiers, the trauma of a lost way of life; the shock of watching former slaves ascend to leadership positions once reserved for whites-only became too much to bear.

Violence against women — their vulnerability in the face of drunk husbands and boyfriends — reached a level that women simply couldn’t take anymore. Many women believed that if they could just get their husbands to stop drinking, the abuse they experienced at home might come to an end.

No one understood at the time that the drinking and abuse were symptoms of an underlying psychological distress, not the cause. A hundred-and-fifty years of fear and paranoia was erupting out of the guilt and shame of seizing lands that belonged to others; of kidnapping, enslaving, and vilifying millions of Africans; murdering tens-of-thousands of women and children during wars with the Indians; and blood-letting in the war between north and south where brothers killed their own brothers.

Americans wasted the lives of other Americans in the Civil War at a rate that has never been equaled since by any external enemy or foe. Americans suffered more casualties during the Civil War than in all other wars combined.

All this evil bubbled up out of the badlands of America — America was arguably the world’s largest and most isolated island at the time. The men who witnessed war; who lived it; who perpetuated it and became its victims held onto their minds and emotions by clinging to desperately delicate threads. Many lost their grip — emotionally and physically — and died early; some took their own lives.  

By the beginning of the twentieth century, most women had had enough. By 1914 (the start of World War I) they were fed up, vulnerable, and powerless. Their men were going off to fight another senseless war where a third of the dead would expire by poison gas while hiding helpless in the muck of trenches. The government passed the Selective Service Act of 1917 (the draft) because in this war young men, many of them, lost their will to fight. 

Women had a big stake in the new war. Most women, despite the abuse, had male friends and relatives. They were mothers; sisters; daughters; grandmothers; even great-grandmothers. They nurtured the men in their lives who weren’t coping well with the nightmare-world into which the USA morphed after terrible decades of slavery, endless war, cruel repression that followed Reconstruction, and the extermination of the native peoples (who they called Indians).

Men, some of them, began to see that women might be right. As a country, what we were doing wasn’t working. People were going to have to change the way they lived and conducted the nation’s affairs.

Most folks know what happened. Women — who couldn’t vote — organized. Men joined them. Everyone seemed to agree on the underlying problem: it wasn’t so much the wars or racial violence or even the rise of robber barons and corrupt governance; what was wrong with America — it was so plain to see for anyone who made the effort to open their eyes — was the alcohol.

Get rid of alcohol, the Devil’s drink, and God would heal our land. God would make right the terrible things we had done. Citizens would all enjoy together at long last the peace of mind that comes with the forgiveness of sin and the love that only Jesus brings to every man who murders and rapes because he can’t stop drinking.

In January 1919 — led by women from the suffrage and temperance movements among others — the 18th amendment passed, which put commercial restrictions on the manufacture and sale of alcohol. The amendment took full effect in January 1920. The public consumption of alcohol — with all its problems — was now in the past.

Emboldened and buoyed by their power to pass almost simultaneously — and in the face of judicial opposition — two constitutional amendments: one that allowed women to participate in the nation’s democracy; the other that corralled the wicked impulses unleashed by alcohol in their war-weary men (World War I ended in November 1918), the women of 1920 felt the stirrings of a new optimism about life in the United States and their future.  

With the help of the men who leaned on them for comfort and emotional support, 75% of the states agreed to ratify the two amendments certain to set things right; amendments that would most assuredly lead the way forward to the salvation of America.

Thus began the walk on the pathway toward righteousness. Citizens basked in the light of greatness; they had won the war in Europe; men marched home in the glow of favor that comes to every repentant people by the forgiveness of Almighty God.

The nation was being transformed into a people; a united people, a nation of both men and women who turned their backs on the devil; who put behind them his corrupting spirits and ales.

Americans — all of us together — at last embraced liberty and freedom and voting-rights for women. After all was said and done — campaign posters explained it beautifully — it was women who brought every single voter into the world. 

And indeed alcohol related crimes fell fast after 1920.

There was a little problem, though.

Despite widespread support for the right of women to vote and for the prohibition of the public consumption of alcohol, it turned out that not everyone in America wanted to climb on board the choo-choo train of righteous-living.

Again, we know what happened. Men formed gangs from which they drew the power to circumvent Prohibition. They continued manufacturing and distributing alcohol, which they sold in clubs they called speakeasies and blind pigs.

Although the 18th amendment did not forbid drinking by private individuals in their own homes, the Constitution of the United States now forbade the commercial production and sale of spirits and ales in public spaces like clubs and liquor stores.

Like the forbidden fruit of a modern Garden of Eden, blind pigs became the rage in every major city in America. By the 1930s, the revenues generated by illegal clubs were so enormous that the gangs who merchandized alcohol were able to wrest control over whatever businesses or local and state governments they chose.

Inequality is never good. Neither is packing a family into a car with no seat belts.

What happened? Crime cartels took over and basically ran our country into the ground. By 1930 our economy collapsed. The Great Depression began. By 1933 ordinary people had enough. Voters — women and men — repealed Prohibition. Voters hoped repeal would stimulate the economy, emasculate the crime-bosses, and reverse the rot that was infesting like a plague of sewer-rats every city and municipality.

It wasn’t to be. By 1933 the iron grip of organized crime was entrenched and intractable. It wasn’t going to let go. Despite massive government spending, new social programs, and numerous public-works projects, unemployment, poverty, and despair continued to demoralize society. The USA spiraled downward; it seemed to never end; maybe it would last forever. 

World War II changed everything. The cartels went into the munitions business. They took control of the factories that built bombers and guns. We’ve been at war ever since. We’ve waged war against one out of every four countries on Earth during the past 75 years. Business has been good.

In the 1980s the cartels decided to try their hand at pharmaceuticals; medical care would come later. It was challenging; pharma was technical; it was hard to understand. What they learned was this: Americans were open, even eager, to try new drugs; to adopt new treatments. The treatments and drugs offered hope. It didn’t seem to matter if they worked all that well.

The drug cartels lobbied Congress for regulatory relief so they could advertise their ”medicines” on television. The rest as they say is history. The people of the United States are now the most drug dependent civilization ever. We may not be that healthy compared to people in a lot of other countries but with the right medications we sort of feel like we might be.

We all know the results. Americans spend more on heath care and drugs than on their houses and food. USA health care is a mess — who will argue with me? But it’s lucrative.

Health care is today the biggest cash cow for the most heartless group of wise-guys ever to take control of American institutions; let’s give this group of con-artists some respect and refer to them as “the medical profession“.

Why not?

Even if folks were able find out the address of their local hospital administrator and a few of his surgeons, they would never be able to visit to drop-off their complaints because these high-rollers live in a hidden world behind gates, most of them. They live like the heads of caliphates, many of them. Yes, these individuals are clever. But Americans are paying too high a price for cleverness.

So… readers who’ve read this far might be asking,

Well… are you going to tell us what Hillary did?

Of course I am. Would I let readers down?

Never!

Hillary’s husband, Bill Clinton, became president of the United States in January 1993. One of the first things he did was appoint his wife to help create a healthcare plan to cover every American — detractors would come to call it HillaryCare.

The techniques used by the healthcare industry to crush universal health care are a case-study in Evil — for anyone who has the stomach to examine what its leaders did. Anyone can click on links in this essay to learn more if they want.

I don’t really care to get into it; the details, that is. The whole episode disgusts me as it should any fair-minded person who cares about ordinary people and their health.

The bottom-line is this: Hillary walked into a snake pit, then hit a brick wall. The healthcare industry chose to demolish the wife of a sitting president in the first year of his first term. They made an example of her.

People would think twice before pulling a stunt like healthcare reform again. It worked — for 15 years anyway — until the Kenyan usurper with no birth certificate, President Barack Hussein Obama, showed up.

The bad-actors who administer the health delivery system in America today consider Hillary Clinton a clear and present danger to their trillion-dollar cash cow. They intend to regain control of Health Care as soon as the GOP wins the presidency this fall. That’s their plan, anyway.

After defeating Hillary’s efforts in 1993, the industry and their buddies began a CIA-style disinformation campaign against her which has continued for the past 23 years — in case she might rise from the ashes of defeat to come after them one more time.

Guess what? She’s on her way. This time she is not one person — the eager-to-please wife of a new president. This time she is 120 million voters strong and counting. If current polling holds, she will be the next president. 

Look at what these yahoos said about President Obama after he tried to fix our casino-style healthcare system during his first term. Does anyone think these folks are not able to discredit others while maximizing their own considerable advantages?

They’ve thrown up roadblock after roadblock. They’ve arranged things so that the new healthcare options can’t be fully implemented until Obama has left the White House. With the election of a Republican president, they plan to dismember and discard ObamaCare  — quickly. Most Americans will never fully understand what they missed or what was taken from them.

Before ObamaCare, when people got sick, insurance administrators sometimes kicked them out of the healthcare casino, altogether. People were on their own. Good luck, and God bless. 

The people who enforced these heinous policies are the same people who call Obama incompetent and a failed president. These are the people who have inflicted the nightmare of the current Republican contender on America; who are willing to scare the whole world to prove they are serious.  

These insurance folks and their  allies aren’t the government; they are civilians with the money to hire experts; they believe themselves fully capable of discrediting even the Crucifixion of Jesus should it ever become necessary. 

During the next six months they are going to use every technique in the army psyche manual to convince voters that Hillary Clinton is a witch who deserves to be burned on a phallic stake.

Watch and learn. They don’t want ObamaCare fixed. They want it wrecked.

Read my essay, Why This Time Women Will Win, to learn more.

Character assassination is just another way to kill someone, to my way of thinking. It’s murder. The Bible says it is, anyway.  I’m intrigued by the possibility that when Jesus said anything at all — even in a Book as discredited by the wealthy and powerful as the Bible apparently is — it might actually be God who is doing the talking.

Our self-described healers of broken bodies (I’m not going to name them because I don’t want them showing up at my house) cooperated with insurance company executives and drug company titans to destroy Hillary Clinton’s reputation. Their lavish lifestyles give them away.

People believe crazy stuff because they’ve listened to these creeps — sometimes on Fox News, the GOP propaganda mill. One guy on my Twitter feed called Secretary Clinton, Killary. He wasn’t smart enough to make up this epithet on his own, believe me. If this guy is the Christian he claims to be, Jesus is going to ask him someday why he would say such a thing. It could get awkward.

People on the right seem to believe that if they hate somebody, they can make stuff up to tear them down. It’s the way the game is played. 

There is an irony of wickedness here that almost defies explanation. It’s all because when she was young and naive Hillary believed that even the bad guys would do the right things when given the right opportunities; she dared to challenge the way health care is delivered in America — to make it fair and accessible to the 80% of Americans who could not afford it.

She learned the hard lesson many Americans now know is true. It isn’t about health care. It’s about protecting the golden cash-cow.

Who wants to work for $25 per month? they are always telling us about Cuban doctors. People who feel called to help the suffering multitudes will be the only takers in a system like that. People who value money will find something else to occupy their time.

Anyway, with a Hillary Clinton win this fall — should the Democrats take majorities in the House and Senate — our citizens will finally have a government with the right people in place to better defend us against being used for prey by the predators who presently plunder us.

Hillary has also taken on the NRA, in case anyone forgot; it’s another (some would argue) bad-boy organization that scares the daylights out of its opposition because a lot of crazy people with guns seem to be among its members. They defend the Second Amendment, which they think permits them to scare the crap out of people by carrying their guns into churches, hospitals, libraries, and schools.

NRA family members are numbered among the crowd of people who have ”gone postal” during the past few years; people who massacred politicians, children, and theater-goers. Hillary challenged this monster-cult. Its a group of men mostly who intimidate congressional leaders to vote against their own common sense.

Children die every week because the gun-makers sell unsafe firearms to an irresponsible public. It’s not right. It’s not safe. It’s not freedom. It’s manufactured fear, plain and simple.

The right to bear arms described in our Second Amendment was included to keep Americans safe and free, not scared and intimidated. It was written to save time when raising an army should foreigners like France or England choose to invade. The NRA has turned the amendment on its head into a money-making scheme for gun panderers who play to people’s paranoia and hate. It’s that simple, at least to me.

So yes, Hillary is a threat to people who are used to getting their way while they live like the cold-hard oligarchs they have become. Do these bad people have nice smiles? Do they wear beautiful clothes? Of course they do. They are billionaires. Their smiles cost hundreds-of-thousands of dollars, some of them. Their clothes cost more.

Hillary is not a billionaire. She never will be. For those readers not good at numbers, let me remind everyone: a billion is 1,000 millions. The man who is running against her; who calls her crooked Hillary — claims to possess 14,000 piles of a million dollars each.

Is it possible to earn and keep billions while working honestly and playing fair? I might believe him if someone I trust analyzed his tax returns, his company balance sheets, and income statements. Until he agrees to release them like everyone else who runs for president, I’m more than skeptical; I’m incredulous. 

In any event, it is the policy of theBillyLeePontificator.com to advocate for income and estate maximums based on agreed-upon and reasonable ratios tied to the minimum wage. These maximums can be very high and do no harm. Please read my essay, Capitalism and Income Inequality, to learn more.

We at theBillyLeePontificator.com do not believe we need a revolution to achieve simple changes to our tax codes that will impact less than one-hundred thousand privileged people.

We are 324 million people living in a democratic republic. It can’t be that hard to raise taxes on the greedy who are distorting our democracy and driving our country off a cliff to protect their power and privilege. Please read my essay Is Something Wrong With America? to learn more.

Something else Hillary did this week while challenging some of the most powerful people on Earth: she clinched the Democratic nomination for president; she’s the first woman of a major political party to do it.

What Hillary achieved cannot be overstated. It’s pretty darn incredible given the negative attitudes toward women-in-leadership espoused by many church and corporate leaders — behind closed doors, of course.  

Here are the election results; they might amaze some readers. The numbers say that mama Clinton has a fighting chance to win this election. My wife prays for her safety and success every single day.

So do I.

Billy Lee

Editors Note: In the November election of 2016, Hillary Clinton beat Donald Trump in popular votes by nearly 3 million. Third-party candidates polled 8 million more. Donald Trump lost the popular count by 11 million votes — one of the largest popular defeats in the nation’s history. Manipulation of vote counts in Michigan and a few other states secured his win in the Electoral College. All courts everywhere refused to hear a single challenge to the results, which were razor thin in three states.