October 13: HOPE

People like Rosa Parks are held up as American heroes today, even while the nation tries to roll back the reforms for which they fought.

And while we’re on the subject, Rosa Parks wasn’t a sweet, unassuming lady who had simply had enough. She was a Civil Rights activist, trained in peaceful non-compliance techniques, who was specifically chosen to take this issue to court. She braved arrest, hatred, the loss of her job, and the legal system to protest segregation. And yet people today are spewing the same sort of nonsense at protesters as they spewed at Rosa Parks.

But new leaders are stepping up every day to make further progress. They are our hope now.

October 12: SLIPPERY

Maybe this should have been about the President's tax avoidance, but I planned it long before those revelations.

The Dakota Access Pipeline runs from oil fields in North Dakota to refineries in southern Illinois. Along the way it crosses under major rivers and part of Lake Oahe near the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. Its construction and existence were considered a threat to clean water as well as culturally significant Native American sites, so in 2016 the #NoDAPL protests began. Protesters were pepper sprayed, had dogs set on them, and were sprayed with water cannon in freezing weather. While construction was delayed, the Trump administration overruled the environmental impact process and expedited the completion of the pipeline.

In early July of this year, however, a court ordered the pipeline to shut down and empty pending an environmental review. Score one for the good guys, I guess, at least for now.

Water is life.

October 11: DISGUSTING

This is the flip side of hope.

A year into the President’s term, the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville attracted neo-Nazis, white nationalists, Klansmen, fascists, racists, anti-Semites, militiamen, and “very fine people,” according to the President. They carried torches and chanted Nazi and white supremacist slogans, and at last one of them raced his car into a crowd of counter-protesters, killing one and injuring 19 more.

We thought it couldn’t get any worse, but we have consistently been proved wrong. The President continues to issue racist statements and retweet racist groups. He even wants to forbid federal funding to any state that teaches anti-racism training, and he says that teaching kids about slavery is literally child abuse.

Then, during the September 29 debate, he refused to condemn white supremacy and instead called out to them, saying, "Stand back and stand by," which was immediately adopted as a rallying cry by white supremacists spoiling for action. He's telling them to interfere in the voting process. He's telling them that he supports their brand of violence and intimidation.

This is the textbook illustration of "DISGUSTING."