The reality of living in Alabama is that when my federal representatives come up in news feeds the first ‘flinch’ is to delete the trending mechanism on my ‘search’. Who wants news of some banal celebrity gossip that adds up to nothing? For one, they are a nuisance anywhere you live. Two, it’s going to be news fairly embarrassing, when it involves someone representing me. Every now and then something noble is reported. Last Saturday, I learned that junior Alabama Senator Katie Britt R-Montgomery had sponsored her MOMS act leading up to Mother’s Day. The news seemed to have a tone of criticism about it’s sincerity since it was during an election year and did not include medicaid. Yet, it was mostly what I stand for as founder of Heart of Dixie Obligation PAC. So I wrote an unmailed letter to Senator Britt thanking her for what she tried to accomplish (her bill still has to pass the Senate and the House).
Sunday night, as I was about to slumber off, I caught a news article concerning her and our other Senator, Tommy Tuberville R-Auburn, crafting a bill that would take away student loan forgiveness for any student arrested during pro-palestinian protests on college campuses. At that moment, I knew I could not send my letter of gratitude to her. It’s like that action completely erased everything she’d done last week. Should terrorist in the form of Hamas be held accountable……………..ABSOLUTELY! Is the conflict over there one sided either way?……………….ABSOLUTELY NOT! As traditional media, supported by pro-Zionist interests, is falsely demonstrating, large amounts of demonstrators as law breakers, pro-Israel Christians are taking the bait or simply choosing to see the issue in a biased way to benefit themselves. Ignoring the reality that off campus instigators are included in those groups news feeds deem unlawful. Ignoring the fact that violence has been purveyed against students by anti-Palestinian factions coming in off the streets just to start conflict. Have some students done it the wrong way………….OF COURSE! There needs to be law and order on campuses for the educational quality of all students. Yet, a bill such as theirs would lead to students being arrested over trumped up occurences, that does not break any laws. Placating their populists, blue collar voting base, who have resentment toward white collar segments of society, simply because they could not get into college, themselves. It’s class warfare in it’s newest terms. And conservative office holders are all too eager to ‘grab the rope’ on the side of popular sentiment. The shameful thing is, both Senators have been educated and employed by universities on numerous occasions. They were coaches and class mates of and with students who may have held the sentiment, protestors do now. A sound argument being those schools paved the ways for their current political positions. The whole ‘anti-woke university student’ credence seems disingenuous, just to placate populism and a uneducated, fanatical religious constituency. To work against a segment of our society that is the last bastion of altruism, against international cruelty.
This is why I’m glad I read the news for once. I usually revile the fact I ever do. As the saying goes, ‘what givith, taketh away.’ The news gave me a reason to send praise to my Senator. A day later, it gave me a reason to take it away. I think it best, never to read it again!
-J
#KatieBritt
#studentprotests
#UniversityofAlabama
#AuburnUniversity
#MOMSact
