The Hurricane of Idalia is about to make landfall in Florida. Right now, it's a category four storm with a wind speed of 130 mph and wind gusts up to 160 mph. The movement is NNE at 17 mph. There have been mandatory evacuations for many residents in various cities and towns. The Governor of Florida is currently having a news conference, and many people have been preparing for this storm for many days. There are concerns for pets, so shelters are being opened for pets and people. We live in a highly technological time, so information about the hurricane is spreading very rapidly. As the eye wall moves on in, there is likely a high storm surge bringing about flooding. The storm is moving quickly going into Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina before going into the Atlantic Ocean. A storm surge warning has existed in places at Savannah and in Charleston. There has been winds, lightning, and storm surge at Crystal River, Florida which is a low-lying area. Many authorities have responded to southwest Florida.
There is the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department resuming shutoffs. This comes after a three-year pause. The temporary moratorium on the shutoffs was enacted in March 2020 as a response to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. The moratorium was allowed to expire on December 31, 2022, based on the false claim made by many Democrats and Republicans that the pandemic is "over." This will be done by the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD). The DWSD said that the shutoffs will start with residents who owe the most and how-to live-in areas where middle and high-income earners live based on the U.S. Census data. That means that over 700 households could risk losing water. Shutoffs will cause health threats to families like dehydration, infectious diseases, and the inability to provide medically necessary meals or infant formula. The ACLU wants an injunction to stop the shutoff, and Brown, the DWSD director scapegoated the households behind on bills. Getting water is a human right, and tons of alternatives can be enacted to help society without massive water shutoffs.
A lot has changed since August 28, 1963, when the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom began. Technology has massively evolved to include iPhones, Netflix, Meta, and artificial intelligence. Yet, victory for liberty and justice is not a reality yet. When voting rights are less now in 2023 than in 1965, then we have a serious problem. Our outrage at the status quo is justified. Many human beings today face police brutality, poverty, sexism, poverty (and other forms of economic oppression), xenophobia, and other forms of bigotry. The 1963 March on Washington and the overall civil rights movement was about bringing diverse people together in order to bring the federal government to fulfill its responsibilities to the people. The federal government has the responsibility to ensure the general welfare and promote justice for all in an indivisible fashion. That is not our reality now when states ban books, restrict voting rights, and seek to harm the free speech rights of peaceful protesters.
The criminal justice system, the wealth gap, and health care disparities will not be solved by moderate prescriptions or MAGA rhetoric. These evils can only be solved by structural and revolutionary change among all levels of government. The deaths of Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and the 3 black people in Jacksonville, Florida show the epidemic of hate crimes in America. It shows that racism is a reality that seeks to destroy black lives literally. It's our just right to stand up for black lives from the poor and the homeless to others of every background. It is important to realize that the 1963 March on Washington (which was organized by tons of people like John Lewis, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Cleveland Robinson, Bayard Rusin, Daisy Bates, Ann Arnold Hedgeman, A. Philip Randolph, etc.) wasn't just about the fight to end legalized Jim Crow apartheid. The march was about ending poverty, advancing a living wage, developing workers' rights, having fair education, developing housing, ending police brutality, and desiring full citizenship among black people.
Grassroots organizing is one major avenue where solutions are enacted, and the black freedom struggle overall has been always inspirational. Reactionary politicians like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis (who advanced a shoot-on-sight policy against undocumented immigrants which is abhorrent) and four times indictment Donald Trump may want to have a vendetta against progressives, but we seek the opposite in promoting progressive values. It is not enough to end Jim Crow apartheid which should be gone. We have to also promote egalitarianism in making sure that economic and racial equality is real via a radical redistribution of economic and political power. It's the reality that when Dr. King promoted these aims including opposing imperialism (and the Vietnam War) via his Poor People's Campaign, that he would be assassinated in 1968. So, we have to be clear to unite with like-minded people to defend democratic freedoms wholeheartedly.
By Timothy
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