The Hearings Begin

 Listening to a man with a heavy accent speak of his experiences as a Capitol Police officer on 1/6; to hear him speak about defending democracy, doing his job, trying to protect both members of Congress and American citizens, you realize again how powerful the voice of one person is in this country.  The voice of any person; even the voice, as this man identifies himself, of the immigrant.  Especially, in fact, the voice of the immigrant.  It reminds us we are all immigrants, or the children of immigrants; that our binding truth is the rule of law, and the function of self-government, of democracy.  Without it we have only anarchy, the rule of the mob.

You realize how small and mealy-mouthed the politicians are who insist this attack was simply a "tourist visit," that the people incarcerated now are not "political prisoners," that real violence was done, the kind the apologists for that day usually denounce as signs of the decay of American life and civilization.

To hear ordinary people speak of extraordinary events is to realize these hearings are necessary.  It is also to understand why the GOP didn't want these hearings to happen.  They will object that these hearings are encouraging "emotional" testimony that obscures whatever "truth" they prefer to defend/espouse.

Those objections will fall on deaf ears for the majority of us.  For the minority who agree with them, we do well to remind ourselves they are the numerical minority, and that this is a "majority rules" system.  These brave witnesses, brave today and brave on the day of the insurrection, deserve our support.  The liars, the thugs, the whiners, the bloviators, the racists and anarchists (what else are they, to insist government fall so they can have their way?), deserve only the attention of our disdain, and our rejection.

We can disagree on what direction this country should take, through it's governments.  We cannot disagree that we are a country and that the worst among us do not deserve the regard, much less the respect, of the rest of us.

May these hearings give us concrete evidence of that simple truth.

House GOP conference chair Elise Stefanik: “The American people deserve to know the truth. That Nancy Pelosi bears responsibility, as speaker of the House, for the tragedy that occurred on Jan. 6.” pic.twitter.com/24IXfoMPrI

— Andrew Solender (@AndrewSolender) July 27, 2021

This seems to be the story the GOP is going with; which is disgusting on every level, as if the Speaker of the House is also the Capitol Police Commissioner, as if the Speaker is supposed to see that the Capitol is as cordoned off as a top-secret military facility; as if the Capitol should be treated like a fortress. What message about democracy in America does that send? And against the personal testimony of the officers in the mob that day, trying to protect order and people on both sides of the line? This is absolutely pathetic.