STRAWS IN THE WIND

I am, I suppose, in irrepressible optimist.  Not from experience, heaven knows, but simply by temperament.  At any rate, I discern a few signs that the progressive side of the American seesaw may be starting to weigh in just a bit.  Here in North Carolina, the sheer horrendousness of the actions of Governor Pat McCrory and his legion of orcs in the State Legislature has provoked a growing response from the previously complacent left [if I may use that term, here in the New South, comparatively.]  A series of "Moral Monday" demonstrations have been held in Raleigh at the State Capital, and although I have not taken part [I hate joining public demonstrations], I give money repeatedly.  I figure someone has to provide funds, and that is something I can do.  Elsewhere, court cases are being filed to reverse the assaults on voting rights and on reproductive rights, and already one or two federal judges have imposed stays on particularly hideous state laws.  Since the Supreme Court, in striking down the most important article of the Voting Rights Act, left in place a secondary route by which the Justice Department may challenge the most egregious limitations of the right to vote, Attorney General Holder has started efforts to invoke what remains of the Act.  Eventually, I would imagine, one or another of these cases will make its way back before the High Court, which will have to commit even more naked assaults on reason and justice if it is to block the efforts of the Obama Justice Department.

These are slender pickings indeed, but they are enough to give this congenital optimist reason to hope.