Why Does Oklahoma Want a Database of All Women Who've Had Abortions & US Will be Choking on Polluted Air by 2054
"Catastrophic" 10-Year Low for Women Representation in Film, It Will Take 60 Years for Women's Parity in UK Film Industry, Builders Blocking Energy-Efficient Homes, The Chad Mitchell Trio Sings
What I’m Discussing Today:
Kareem’s Daily Quote: The banality of evil is real. It happens when we refuse to see it, stop it, or convince ourselves that doesn’t exist.
Oklahoma Pols Want a Database of Everyone Who Has an Abortion: The GOP constantly complains about Big Government intrusion, yet they continue to pass laws to intrude. This time they also want to ban contraceptives that have nothing to do with abortion. Why?
Vast swaths of US will be exposed to polluted air by 2054, says report: If we don’t start stopping it now, when?
Study shows a ‘catastrophic’ 10-year low for female representation in film: Pop culture is where we find society’s true values. Right now, it’s telling us we don’t value women’s voices or experiences as much as we do men’s.
UK film industry may achieve gender parity in 2085, study finds: Why do we have to wait 60 years to achieve parity? Because we don’t demand it.
Why the industry is blocking the push for more energy-efficient homes: They claim it would make homes too expensive. Not surprisingly, that’s a lie.
The Chad Mitchell Trio Sings “I Do Adore Her”: A sweet, simple love song guaranteed to put you in a meditative state.
Kareem’s Daily Quote
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph.
Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia (1930-1974)
I think of this quote whenever I wonder how Trump has been able to continue to triumph in the face of everything we now know. Racist? Check. Rapist? Check. Fraud? Check. Sex with a porn star three months after his wife gave birth? Lied to the public allowing Americans to die of COVID-19? Gave tax cuts to the rich that added $8 trillion to the national debt? Check, check, and check. Yet, those who cast their votes for him can delude themselves that they are good people helping their country. Their delusion does not excuse them from the heinousness of their act. Their lack of self-awareness of their complicity in handing bomb-making material to a person who is planting the bomb under the Statue of Liberty doesn’t make them less of a terrorist.
We may not like it, but here we are. A despicable criminal will be the presidential nominee of the Republican Party, and the cowering members of the GOP are doing nothing to stop him. They are instead celebrating him. The inability to recognize evil has made them evil. How did this happen? Though Flannery O’Connor said this facetiously, it accurately applies to them: “Total non-retention has kept my education from being a burden to me.” Whatever they learned in schools about critical thinking, history, honor, or integrity has long been forgotten.
There is a similar famous quote: “All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” This is often attributed to Edmund Burke, though he never said it. He did say something related: “When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one…” I like to think of this Substack newsletter as a place where good people associate to think over the issues facing us, to feel comfort in the support of the like-minded, to recharge their commitment to fight the enemy—even when it is other Americans.
My study of history and the many atrocities people commit always get the same reaction from me: How did people allow this to happen? The way we can contort our thinking to justify the worst behavior never ceases to astound and sadden me. We have all justified shameful acts in our lives, but the difference is between those who learn from that behavior and wish to change it and those who refuse to acknowledge their mistakes. Ordinarily, we could simply dismiss them and leave them in their misery. But when they join together in masses large enough to burn down the country, we must do something—or accept that by doing nothing we actually became them.