by
Nick Bennett
PCDP Central Committee Member/Roseville Junction Democratic Club Chair

As a former infantry paratrooper in the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, I have a well-founded respect for firearms. During basic training, our M4s were kept locked in the middle of our barracks room at night, only a dozen or so feet from where we slept, so that we could quickly take them out for training during the day. When I jumped from C-130s, my weapon was strapped to my side in a protective padding, which I then had to lower off of my body with my other equipment so that I could safely hit the ground. As I patrolled on foot in the middle of the night through the villages and farmland of Anbar Province in Iraq, I carried my four-man fire team’s M249 light machine gun. The smell of fireworks reminds me of the shooting ranges, as does the faint ringing that remains in my ear.

The power to take a life with the squeeze of a finger is an immense responsibility that should never be taken lightly. Firearms have an important role for protection, but far too often it seems like they are treated as toys and people who should not have them do. As a society, we should not be afraid to have an open discussion about what it means to be a responsible gun owner and user. We must not accept that there is nothing that we can do to prevent school shootings and the easy access to firearms by criminals. We are all affected by the misuse of firearms. The grief and fear that we experience are not the price of freedom but the intransigence to modernize what it means to keep and bear arms in today's society. Responsible gun ownership must not only mean safely protecting one’s self, but ensuring that one’s community is safe from gun violence as well.

Have you read Black Like Me?  How about My Left Foot, The Grapes of Wrath, or Exodus? I don’t know if any of these books are still in elementary school libraries, but they were in mine in the 1960s. I remember almost none of the over 200 books I read when I was 10, but I do remember these four. I’m sure if there had been a book that included LGBTQ issues back then, it would remain memorable as well. If religious extremists had been busy banning books in the 60s the way they are now, surely these four would have been on their OMG list. These books allowed me to look at the world through the eyes of someone very different from myself – a Black person, someone with severe physical limitations, families living in profound poverty, and the Jewish survivors leaving Germany to start a new life after WWII. Growing up in a mostly homogenous population, as many of us do, books allow us to travel outside our own confined existence to experience a world of great diversity.

So why are the Republicans so afraid that our children will read books that would allow their acuity and compassion to grow? Republicans say books like these will indoctrinate children into becoming like the characters in the book. Nope. We don’t become Black or Jewish, develop cerebral palsy, or seek poverty after reading a book. We learn how to understand and talk to each other, though. Republicans are petrified that our children will see how destructive bigotry of any kind is. This threatens their self-serving need to preserve their white homogeneity. Their inability and refusal to reach across the aisle threaten us all.

Perspective and empathy are essential tools to learn, especially when living in a world of 8 billion people.  It will take many great minds to view the world from many different perspectives, all working together if there is to be any hope for human survival. 

“If we could only put ourselves in the shoes of others to see how we would react, then we might become aware of the injustice of discrimination and the tragic inhumanity of every kind of prejudice.”
― John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me

We are heartbroken seeing the loss of life and the destruction of entire communities in Maui. Our planet is fragile and is screaming at us to do a better job of protecting it. Our efforts to shift away from using fossil fuels have been too slow and too small. MAGA Republicans like Kevin Kiley block efforts to make changes at every turn, placing their own greed above everything, including human survival. They enable wealthy and powerful corporations, keeping us on this perilous path towards destruction. We must choose leaders who prioritize restoring the health of our planet by transitioning to earth-friendly lifestyles, protecting our environment for future generations. We cannot get off the current perilous path if Republicans hold the power to keep us there. Democrats are willing and able to make the critical changes. 

Beware the Religious Extremists, Masquerading in Christian Clothing

Freedom from religious persecution was of such importance to the creators of our country that they enshrined the 1st Amendment to our Constitution to afford each of us total individual rights to religious choice. Americans deeply cherish this uniquely democratic right. On 9/11, when religious terrorists attacked our country, we all came together to recover and to repair our nation. We denounced these atrocious acts as unrepresentative of any religious doctrines, and recognized these were purely acts of violence and hate, trying to hide under the cover of religion.

Today, in Placer County, we are under attack again by religious extremists. These attacks are much more insidious! Now, they live among us, hiding under the clothing of Christian believers. Instead of planes, they have hijacked our public school boards. There is nothing Christian about the things they say and do. Their actions are rooted in racism, homophobia, misogyny, and patriarchy. They are intent on destroying the public school systems, piece by piece, until there is no money left in the coffers and no teachers or staff left, except those that will adhere to their doctrine of hate.  Their goal is to force all children to grow up in the very restrictive environment they envision for a compliant population.

This is not American. Nor is it Christian. This is fascism. It is imperative that we see it for what it is, an attack on the freedoms we hold most dear; we must exorcise this demonic despotism from our school boards. Demand that the leadership protect your children’s rights to a thorough and accurate education in a safe learning environment, free from religious extremism as our Constitution requires. Elect school board leaders who will put the needs of your children foremost, free from religious indoctrination.

Let the Children Learn

The American Dream – that enigmatic hope for a successful future we imagine our children will be able to attain. We love, feed, house, and guide our children, but much of their future depends on the interactions they have when we are not around. We depend on our public school system to provide our children with the skills they will need to succeed in an ever-increasingly complex world. Young minds will need to develop a strong understanding of earth sciences, history, cooperation, and technology to face the challenges ahead.

But Republicans demand that our youth live an American nightmare. They seek to repeat the mistakes of the past by preventing our children from hearing a complete and accurate chronicle of our country’s history. They impede the teaching of science and technology our children will need to survive by trivializing and denying the impacts of the changing climate. They hate that 21st-century children thrive in a diverse cultural environment. Their bigotry and desire to maintain control over not only their own children, but everyone’s children, require that they dumb down the young minds and deny them the opportunity to ever escape their parental constraints.

We must support a vibrant education for our youth: provide them with access to books on all subjects; celebrate diversity and recognize the contributions of all groups currently and throughout our past; and provide safety from those far-right extremists who use violence to fetter them from seeking the American Dream.  

We believe that today’s women deserve all the rights we have fought for decades to achieve. And even though voters keep rejecting the flood of Republican measures attacking bodily autonomy, these unhearing legislators remain committed to banning or limiting abortion and banning approved forms of family planning, including contraceptives. Kevin Kiley, our current representative, is one of the Republicans working to take away our rights. Let’s elect a leader who believes we all have the right to control our own bodies, decide when and with whom we have children, and determine our futures.