Fascism Watch for 28 November 2023: Catch-up Part 3, the It All Blurs Together edition

First, let’s get to the latest and the meatiest of the matter:

Historian begs Americans not to downplay Trump’s threats to use the military against them

It’s about Trump’s plans to use the Insurrection Act to turn the military against American citizens. That ties in, as always, with Republicans working to end a quiet coalition that fought foreign propaganda – particularly Russian fascist propaganda and disinformation, which they are more than happy to exploit.

That down, let’s also talk about this, and not just the bill and not just the state, but about the “Fundamentalist Supremacy” it encapsulates:

Florida Republican House Bill 599 would ban any action against most kinds of anti-LGBTQ harassment at work, making unlawful any “adverse action” against anything done by an employee or contractor which reflects “deeply held religious or biology-based beliefs, including a belief in traditional or Biblical views of sexuality and marriage, or the employee’s or contractor’s disagreement with gender ideology.” The bill goes into great depth about misgendering being a super-protected right, but also lets employees and contractors ignore or defame same-sex marriage (explicitly, above) or, for that matter, same-sex relationships at all.

It also applies to nonprofits and any form of on-the-job training, and is a license to harass and abuse all LGBT people.

I’ve been telling you for years, they never intended to stop with the trans people. They haven’t.

They’ll start with making harassing and abusing us into a right. That’s the above. And next?

Remember that Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson said the Supreme Court could “revisit” the cases striking down state laws against LGBT people’s functional existence – not even just marriage – as recently as 2022, after Roe v. Wade got overturned, explicitly talking about Clarence Thomas’s call to revisit – and overturn – those decisions. He hasn’t walked away from this at all, and won’t, because he believes that ‘Depraved’ America Deserves God’s Wrath.

It’s always been about making all of us illegal again.

They will make all of us illegal again if they can. One step at a time.

As for the rest of the backlog, well – we’ll sort it into categories. Naturally, they bleed together, but there has to be some sort of organisation so I’m going with “best fit.” Really, every three or four of these could turn into an essay of their own.

( Read more... )

Stop KOSA

KOSA, the so-called “Kids Online Safety Act,” is – amongst other things – an anti-LGBTQ ‘trojan horse’ a bill, one that will let red-state attorneys general go after LGBTQ people online in other states. There have been revisions; the revisions have not fixed it.

Some conservatives have already telegraphed their plans to use KOSA to advance anti-LGBTQ+ agendas. A recent video has surfaced of Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) stating that KOSA ought to be a priority for ensuring the safety of children online, while in the same breath, saying that “protecting minor children from the transgender in this culture” should be among the top priorities of conservatives. This is the connection LGBTQ+ advocacy groups, like LGBT Tech, have feared since KOSA was introduced. Unlike other Republicans, Sen. Blackburn just said the quiet part out loud.

Washington Blade

The Heritage Foundation have also said, outright, that they will use this law – if passed – to censor LGBTQ content, and go after LGBTQ people online. They have said so themselves, explicitly.

Here’s one writeup on the legislation. Here’s another: Parents of Trans Youth Fear KOSA’s Trojan Horse. Here’s a third.

So please contact your senators specifically, and do so this week, both to oppose this bill in general, and to oppose “hotlining” this bill in particular. Hotlining is a Senate procedure that would result in the bill being passed by unanimous consent, which would mean that there would be no roll-call vote – and no accountability for its passage.

Please contact them directly. Use a telephone, use their contact forms, use whatever you need to, but know those either of those first two are far, far better than petitions or mass online signature gathering. (Tho’ those last two are better than nothing.)

A lot of people ask me, “Yeah, but what can we do?”

And I give answers.

Today, that answer is try to stop this bill.

Please.

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.