Mark Green: Too Cowardly to Debate

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Cowardly Rep. Green wouldn’t debate Justin Kanew and now he won’t debate Kiran For Congress. Not very democratic for a guy who says he hates dictators!

FRANKLIN REQUIRES PERMITS TO PROTEST

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In a deeply disappointing decision Franklin just voted to require permits to protest. All protests in Franklin have been peaceful.

The resistance was bipartisan. Mayor Ken Moore broke the 4-4 tie.

What About Us and Broadband?

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Robyn Deck, candidate for Tennessee’s State House District 25, needs better broadband service. It is vital for rural health services, business, and education. So why do so many other things take priority in the General Assembly? Robyn has a plan and we need a change. How about we elect some people with new ideas willing to do the work for rural priorities?

FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts here, and wherever else you like to listen here.

SCOTUS Grits

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With RBG’s death and the fate of the Supreme Court in question, Anna and Aftyn outline how we got here, what’s to come, and what you can do about it. TLDR: Aftyn’s arch-nemesis Mitch McConnell doesn’t play by the rules, and don’t let Tennessee’s Senator Alexander retire to Canada in peace.

Send an email to Lamar

FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you like to listen.

We Are Wide Awake

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Joining us on the pod today is Victoria Manning, the brains behind Sunrise Tennessee’s latest action against Senator Lamar Alexander where we got up at 4 in the morning to make noise outside of his house because of the injustice of him agreeing to participate in the Supreme Court nomination vote. We talk about the action and we also put it into the broader historical context of why direct actions are a crucial strategic tool for Sunrise and all mass movements to use to make meaningful change. We also dive into what the left should push for when it comes to the Supreme Court, and why electing people like Marquita Bradshaw to the Senate is so important to winning an equitable future.

Find out what Native Land you are living on.

Phonebank for Marquita Bradshaw with us!

Sunrise Tennessee Interest Form

Follow Sunrise Tennessee on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.

FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts and wherever else you like to listen.

Who Does “Right to Work” Really Serve? with Mariah Phillips

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Mariah Phillips, candidate for State House Rep in District 37, joins Sandy to talk about what it means to be a “Right to Work” state.  They both urge caution as the General Assembly considers chiseling the law into the Tennessee State Constitution. Unions get a bad rap and low wages have bought many jobs to Tennessee but what are the long-term consequences of handing our future to big corporations? Hasn’t the pandemic uncovered many inequalities in worker’s safety and security?

FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts here, and wherever else you like to listen here.

John, Jesus, and Justice

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Reverend Kevin Riggs preaches at All Souls Church in Nashville from the book of Malachi on how what people say and do matters and that whitewashing wrongdoing compromises the word of God.

FULL PODCAST available on Apple Podcasts, and wherever else you like to listen.

Rutherford County Candidates Comment on Breonna Taylor’s Case

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The Murfreesboro Holler asked Rutherford County candidates to comment on the injustice of Breonna Taylor’s case. Here is what they said:

Mariah Phillips:

“Justice is not done here in this case. I pray for the family and friends of Ms. Taylor. I pray for the people of Kentucky to come together, and I pray for our entire community and the country who find too many instances where wrongful death occurs and justice is not served. If that situation was handled differently, it would have been safer for the police involved, and Breonna Taylor, who was innocent, would still have her life today. We are in dire need of criminal justice reform, and the best way to change laws is to change the lawmakers.”

 

Chase Clemons:

As we’ve seen far too many times, the officers involved with the murder of Breonna Taylor will not be held accountable. Justice demands that we do more. That starts with electing leaders that will do away with no-knock warrants, ban chokeholds, and work towards true reform of our justice system. When you go to vote, say their names – Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Mike Brown – and elect representatives that will deliver the change we desperately need.

 

Brandon Thomas:

“I know so many of the people who live in District 49, Black Tennesseans and the people who love them, are feeling this pain. They felt it when Breonna Taylor was killed, and they felt it again last night when no officers were charged for her death. I cannot say this enough – we need people in office who know what this pain feels like. We need people who have felt this pain to be at the table when decisions are being made. We need more Black voices in these legislative discussions so that we can begin to create change, by doing things like ending no-knock raids and qualified immunity. Together as a community we have to fight for an equitable justice system”

 

Matt Ferry:

In 1963, Reverend Martin Luther King wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” Nearly 60 years later, that statement stings when we realize just how much work we still have to do when it comes to racial injustice. The inaction on the part of the judicial system we witnessed on Wednesday is an absolute miscarriage of justice and a stain on the fabric of our nation. 

The sooner we come to terms with the fact that the letter of the law reads differently for many folks based on lines of race and socioeconomic status, the sooner we can address the problems plaguing the United States criminal justice system. 

My heart and thoughts are with the family of Breonna Taylor as well as with those who continue to fight for justice and equality in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

OP-ED: GOP REP. MIKE SPARKS Distorts MLK’s Words to Justify A Racist, Oppressive Agenda

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Mike Sparks is facing an extremely difficult election this cycle.  Brandon Thomas is a young, black man with a progressive platform and widespread support, particularly among young people. He’s energetic and has put in the work to make personal connections with a huge swath of the district’s electorate.

Sparks, by contrast, has spent much of his time defending the bust of KKK Grand Wizard Nathan Bedford Forest in the state’s capital and claiming to the Tennessee Holler that he doesn’t know why the civil war was fought.

He even took some time out of this busy schedule to pen an Op-Ed for the Murfreesboro Voice in defense of Trump loving Ex-Democrat John DeBerry.

In it, he claims that DeBerry is some kind of victim for having been ousted from the Democratic ticket over his litany of absurd statements and positions. This is, of course, absurd, as the Democratic Party is a political organization with every right to decide not to lend its apparatus to a candidate who does not fit with their values. Unlike Sparks’ Republican Party, which seems to jump frantically from one ideology to another in pursuit of power, the Democrats seem to have at least some standards.

I don’t find myself overly disturbed by Sparks’ defense of DeBerry, however. This is run-of-the-mill culture war nonsense that Republicans always gin up a month or so before an election to drive out their base. It’s ridiculous, but it comes with the territory. I do take issue with Sparks’ appropriation of the language of resistance, which he does so brazenly that I can only assume that he is as ignorant of its context as he is of our own state’s Confederate history.

The absurdity begins as he mentions the iconic anti-fascist poem by German pastor Martin Niemoller, “First They Came…” Sparks doesn’t actually quote any lines from the poem, likely because the very first line of the poem’s most famous form is “first they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out- because I was not a socialist.”

This isn’t a poem about a wealthy, longtime state representative being removed from his party for supporting a fascist president. It’s about the ways in which authoritarian governments divide their population and attack those in the political, religious, and racial minorities while assuring all others that they’re safe as part of the majority.

It’s a critique of the “Us versus Them” mentality.

Does this sound familiar? One example might be an authoritarian president building a campaign on the claim that a large portion of Mexican immigrants are dangerous criminals, or banning a religious minority from entering the country.

Another example could be a clownish Governor and entrenched supermajority passing laws that target protestors and strip them of their voting rights for the crime of daring to speak up in defense of black life. I wonder what Mike Sparks would have to say about events like that?

It’s the excerpt from Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which is the most egregious, however. Unlike the poem, of which one could give Sparks the benefit of assuming ignorance, he adamantly claims to have read this document, and yet his understanding of it seems to be on the level of someone who skimmed Dr. King’s work for quotes that could be construed to agree with him.

He goes with the oft-quoted warning that “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” This is a remarkably convenient line for Sparks, and is so removed from its context as to be nearly meaningless. However, to find this line, he was forced to sift through a mountain of criticism for laws that look identical to the anti-protest bill that he just voted for!

For an obvious example, Dr. King says that “there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest.”

This speaks to a greater tendency among the right to quote Dr. King while categorically refusing his key claim that all actions must be viewed within the context which has given rise to them. This is what Dr. King meant when he said that “riots are the language of the unheard,” and it is absolutely central to his brilliant understanding of opposition to hierarchy and oppression.

While Brandon Thomas travels the district meeting constituents and accepting endorsements from workers unions and activist groups, Mike Sparks spends his time defending the racist authoritarians of the past like Nathan Bedford Forest, and the racist authoritarians of today like Donald Trump.

He is a voice for the powerful against the powerless, an advocate for order at the expense of justice.

He is what Dr. King would call “the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: ‘I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action.’”

No man who votes to protect a bust honoring a KKK Grand Wizard or strip voting rights from peaceful protestors for “camping” should be using the words of Dr. King or Pastor Niemoller. We cannot allow the defenders of power and authoritarianism to co-opt the language of true, profound resistance to such horrors.

We should learn from our history, so that men like Mike Sparks aren’t able to distort it for their own agenda.

 

Brendon Donoho is a student at MTSU, president of MTSU Young Democratic Socialists of America, and a resident of Rutherford County