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On that earlier date, the US Supreme Court's chief justice, the proslavery Roger Taney, issued the court's ruling that not only failed Dred Scott but all Black people. Tanney's ghost has never left this land, and it has reincarnated itself in the bodies of some of these justices - most particularly and ironically, that of Clarence Thomas.
Thomas strides ahead of his companion on the court, Alito, in his debasement of any progress and evolution in this country. Just like Roger Taney's wife, Thomas' is active in the furthest reaches of the fascist movement. Anne Key Taney, sister of Francis Scott Key, was the daughter of slaveowners and a slaveowner in her own right.
But this decision to reverse two generations of precedence and hard-won civil rights for women is not a stand-alone event, as bad as it truly is.
As some justices on the high court loosely encourage, they have the rights of lesbians, gays, and trans people on their radars next.
The left must really keep its eye on this ball and be cognizant of what exactly is happening here.
This isn't a fight for the lives of babies. These fascists starve and kill babies as sacrifices to capitalism.
This isn't a fight against lesbians, gays, and trans people. There are and always have been those people among the fascists as easily as they've been among the left.
What this is as critical a cultural fight between two visions of civilization as any fight in other epochs, and old one civilization and a new, emerging one.
The right wing of this country has loathed not only every step of progress made since the overturning of Dred Scott with the 13th amendment, but also every piece of progressive legislation enacted since the Franklin Roosevelt administration. They hate the laws, and they despise the movements that organized to bring about these laws.
The right wing in this country wants those laws reversed, which goes without saying; but it has been equally intent on gutting these movements. If you doubt the extremist lengths the right wing will go to in its battle for its civilization, you need only ask a Communist. If not a Communist, ask a Black or white militant.
Communists, and Black and white militants faced spying, framing, false imprisonment, assassination, and deportation, among other things. These acts were done by local, state, and federal authorities - state-sanctioned mob violence.
The left, in my opinion, will never peacefully gain ground in this battle without deep democratic reforms in this country. And what might I mean by that?
I mean how gerrymandering has allowed the most extreme rightwing candidates to hold office.
I mean the hold corporate money has on both parties.
I mean the monopoly of power both parties hold as well.
I mean how huge swathes of the center part of this country have been de-populated to greater and greater extents yet their powers in the US Senate are not diminished one iota.
Where have we seen the consequences of such cronyism before in history?
Mass movements in Britain coalesced to produce the Great Reform Act of 1832. The king at the time, William IV, was the last British monarch we know of to bring a government down because he refused to pass this bill authored by said government. That government resigned, but the mass movements had grown too strong, and in order for the king to get any laws passed, he had to recall the former government and assent to the reform bill.
The Reform Act did several things, but one thing in particular should be of interest to us and this matter of US senators representing states with virtually no one in them.
Since Henry VIII's reign, British monarchs could "stack" Parliament with representatives who had no constituencies but who were favorable to the king and the British Establishment. An empty hill. A swamp. An abandoned farm. These were among the sites "represented" by men in Parliament. The masses had grown sick of this cronyism.
The Reform Act of 1832 abolished this practice and set standards for representatives of Parliament - called "ministers of Parliament, or MPs." The British Establishment began to lose its grip. In less that 100 years, a newly rejuvenated lower House took aim at the House of Lords and weakened its powers too.
These US senators from virtually emptied states are just like the cronies placed on empty hills to control Parliament. And they have guided, aided, and abetted the construction of a reactionary judiciary.
Of course, back in the US, keen students of history know what Taney wrought, and what radical abolitionist John Brown wrought too. Theirs were the first shots in the unfolding US Civil War. Let's be mindful there is worse to come.
Let us also be mindful that part of the antislavery forces - the Republican Party - ultimately turned on its civil rights project and abandoned the freed population.
We in the US need such a mass movement that can confront and sustain itself, or we will never - or never easily - gain the ground in this critical fight, which we are presently losing.
P.S. And the Democratic Party will not save us.
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