A Black Armband 1970, A Black Velvet Scarf 2020

Two women, names that began with "J," had an eye-opening effect on me in my life.

In 1970 this fourteen-year-old, dangerously naïve pious girl was sent to a private "Christian" academy against her will. The violence witnessed there from the adults in charge left an impression on her for life.

Pop teen magazines delivered by mail and a radio hidden in a student's room gave news of the outside world. It was against the school rules to have a radio. It was the sixties and seventies, and you would have to be blind and deaf not to know of the movement taking place in America for 'Love and Peace' against a government that pushed for war and drafted young men against their will.

We had rock stars, but this new "ROCK"  star on stage was a woman, holding her own among the greats at Woodstock Music Festival 1969. We played her album secretly at our dorm, her music was powerful, liberating, screeching lyrics, a woman with her own style. She represented a form of wild freedom in a song women had not witnessed, but she lacked the discipline to curtail the wildness in her personal life. The lack of the second destroyed her at a young age because she, like her music, had no limits. To die of lack of self-care is a useless loss of a good life. One casualty was an addiction that killed her.

The radio reported she died, young, 27, by a drug overdose. Those of us who admired this woman decided to wear a black armband for one week in memory of this great woman, and so I did. It was a peaceful remembrance of a great woman to this shy 14 year old girl. Why she had to die so young of an OD would become a study of mine. Addictions.

Fifty years later, this 14-year-old teenager is older and wiser, another woman whose name began with a "J" dies of cancer in her more senior years.

This woman did not stand on a stage and screech a tune for a rebellious generation. This woman went for a longer-lasting effect on many generations to follow.  SHE BECAME EDUCATED, formally, and informally, to serve everyone with her professional talents. She practiced self-care with limits.  A woman of dissent, with controlled emotions and a mighty pen, she preferred the opera to a wild screeching voice.  I like both genres.

The changes this patient lawyer would fight for would give all people, including women, especially women, an equal right to make personal choices. Change takes generations and begins with one note at a time. Peaceful patience turns the key to liberty.

The first woman I wore a black armband for fifty years ago was Janis Joplin. Today I wear a black velvet silk scarf in memory of Joan Ruth Bader. Thankful to have lived in the years to know both great women.

 

 

"We, The People"

“We do not preserve the U.S. Constitution to protect elected public employees; we preserve the U.S.                                      Constitution to protect “We, the individual people” governed.”

Being free is not easy, it is a responsibility that comes with knowing your rights to live free. The U.S. Constitution was voted upon and agreed by the American people and Congress in 1787.  It was established to give the power to “We, The People” to always be governed by ourselves collectively.

The U. S. Constitution was not created to make a profit for elected public servants, nor for elected public servants to use their elected position to make deals in back rooms to gain personal wealth. The U.S. Constitution was created to protect “We, The People.”  Politicians have made themselves “KINGS.”

If any person is angry with American law and traditions, you need not apply to run for any elected public position; you have proven by your angry words and actions that you are not qualified to bring positive change.  You will not move our country forward; instead, your anger will keep our government and country stagnated.  The American people are not violent, angry, or greedy as some bold individuals in the limelight.  “We, the people” want to move forward together.

The peaceful among us do not watch TV twenty-four hours a day, we have a life.

“We, the people,” will not be divided; we respect each other and want harmony in our country.  The U.S. Constitution guarantees this better than any politician. The majority of us that make this nation peaceful are watching just enough to know we need to vote these politicians out.

No wonder the intellectual elites that were elected to govern today want to change the Constitution to suit their master plans. These elected public servants have made themselves demigods of intellect that do not serve the American people anymore.  These grandiose master plans do not support individual freedom and choices as outlined in the U.S. Constitution.

Executive orders are being wielded like a sword by elected public servants in states without running these through the legal channels set up, elected officials are not obeying the decisions of the Supreme Court in the states and the people are told these unilateral decisions, mandated against the people’s will are to be put in motion, because it is the “right thing to do.”  Politicians are bullying each other and us.

A line from the preamble to the Constitution states the following:

“But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them (we, the people) under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.”

We don’t need a complete overhaul of our government, we need new public servants that uphold the U.S. Constitution.  Any politician promoting or permitting violence and taking away our law enforcement is forcing our hand to do the work we elected them to do.  Violence is NOT the people’s choice.

Thankful to know more about this extraordinary document because I was “Made in the U.S.A.”

Being free is not easy, it is a responsibility to abide by the U.S. Constitution you have to stand up and vote for it. We will be at the voting places to vote. The U.S. Constitution will stand.