Comrade Volinsky got some bad news this week. A judge has ruled that his clients, Mary Lee Sargent and Arnold Alpert, do not have standing to sue the state for removing a historical marker honoring Communist Elizabeth Gurley Flynn. I have to wonder if he knew that and just took their money.
Kissinger determined that Alpert and Sargent and others in the group lacked standing and therefore said he did not need to go further on the state’s other arguments.
Citing Avery v. Comm’r NH Dept of Corr. “in evaluating whether a party has standing to sue (the court) focus(es) on whether the party suffered a legal injury against which the law was designed to protect.”
“Neither an abstract interest in ensuring that the state Constitution is observed nor an injury is indistinguishable from a generalized wrong allegedly suffered by the public at-large is insufficient to constitute a personal, concrete interest.”
“Rather the party must show that its own rights have been or will be directly affected,” the judge wrote.
While they consider an appeal, let’s revisit what this all means in the context of progressive whining about history and statues and feelings and racism.
Few, if any, of those leaning left oppose the removal or destruction of statues to American History to how it is taught. It may not be long for this world if it hurts someone’s feelings or can be linked to some human rights violation or injustice (actual or alleged). But if Mary Lee Sargent is correct [that the marker was removed based entirely on political ideology], don’t those all need to go back?
And [if so] does that open us up to honoring every slave owner, racist, fascist, or white supremacist of historical interest or influence [Democrat or otherwise] who was born or lived in New Hampshire. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s ideological passion, after all, resulted in the ethnic and political persecution, cleansing, and deaths of many millions of people.
Communist regimes murdered blacks, Jews, Women, Children, Christians, and homosexuals, but that does not begin to plumb the depths of incarceration, abuse, discrimination, and intolerance credited to Elizabeth Gurley Flynn’s preferred ideology.
As if that is not enough to chew on, shortly after the marker came back down (and we missed this when it happened), someone printed up replicas of the marker as yard signs.
“Like most people, I was not very aware of the historical marker when it was first placed but when they started talking about removing it, I was alarmed,” said Poinier, a former school board member. “It’s been really heartening to see how much support the community has given to this really interesting ‘Rebel Girl’ and the signs have been met with great enthusiasm.”
I hope you put them up next to your ‘In my America’ Yard sign. Talk about a tone-deaf echo chamber. In their America, they … honor a woman who defended a political ideology that “murdered blacks, Jews, Women, Children, Christians, and homosexuals.”
If that’s worth celebrating, and why wouldn’t Democrats want that – it is, after all, the promise of their political ambitions; perhaps the answer is to put the marker back. Elizabeth Gurley Flynn represents not just Concord’s past but its future. A movement disguised as pro-labor and pro-democracy destined to use and undermine the people it claims to defend to erect a violent, intolerant, despotic one-party state.
Can we get a Marxist equivalent of an Amen?