Happy Fourth of July, North Carolina As we gather around our charcoal grills and savor the smoky taste of burgers and franks prepared in the only correct fashion, let us not forget the reason for our merriment. On this day, the fourth of July, our great country declared its independence from an oppressive rule. Yet even now, over two-hundred years later, oppressive forces lurk in the shadows cast by the light of the american dream. The very same American Dream whose brilliance comes from the idea that despite everything that sets us apart, everything that makes us different, we are all one people, one nation under one flag. We work together, bleeding the same blood in defense of the idea that anyone can succeed, anyone can make it to the top. We all possess the same inalienable rights.





The dripping, envenomed fangs of america’s religious right seem to have bared down on our fair southern swing state. With gleaming, predatory eyes locked on women’s reproductive rights, this anti-abortion assemblance descended on North Carolina’s legislative house determined to reshape our shaky world. Riding on the back of a brown-scare bill designed to prohibit the enforcement of already illegal Sharia laws, these charlatans affixed a series of amendments that if ratified would make the legal abortion process nearly impossible. Imposing intentionally unrealistic sanctions on clinics offering abortion services, such as forcing doctors to perform incredibly invasive vaginal ultrasounds on women seeking abortions, and forcing the women in question to listen to the heartbeat of the fetus prior to its termination. As well as forcing educators to teach students that life somehow begins at conception, thus giving the so called Pro Life movement an advantage in the classroom. Ignoring the dishonest nature of calling one’s movement the “Pro Life” movement, its clear that its adherents have no intention of letting the debate fall on an open forum to be decided in the hearts and minds of well informed Americans. Rather, the religious right and their right-wing allies have decided to piggyback on islamophobic fear mongering and slither their way into the law books.





Between desk chair patriots and keyboard activists, it becomes strikingly apparent that the heyday of American discontent is past. Student protests, marches, riots and the like simply aren’t about to happen and when they do, they don’t change things for the better. The gnarled hands of the old money are wrapped tightly around the reigns of our state and it doesn’t look like their grip is lessening, but the key to our survival may lie with the inherent weaknesses of their generation. We have a power that they lack, we have numbers and the ability to share information quickly and efficiently. You may be asking yourself what you can do, well I’m here to tell help you with that, this isn’t a PSA, this is a call-to-arms. Watch the linked videos, share this, blog about what’s going on. Tell everyone who will listen, and even those who won’t. Knowledge is power, information is our greatest weapon, so spread the ammo around.



http://video.msnbc.msn.com/rachel-maddow-show/52390429



