President Donald Trump opened up nearly 5,000 square miles of ocean off the coast of New England to fisherman late last week.
Trump reversed the Obama administration's decision in 2016 that established the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument about 130 miles southeast of Cape Cod and barred fishermen from fishing the area. Former Maine Governor Paul LePage attended the roundtable talk with the president when he announced the decision Friday, June 5, according to Common Dreams, a news web site headquartered in Portland, Maine.
In the clamor that has followed the killing of George Floyd on May 25, there is the insistence that we must all speak out against racism. A Martin Luther King Jr. quote is often mentioned: "In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends."
Along with the reasonable demand to speak up, it seems, is an unreasonable stipulation to follow a specific script, using only approved words. For example, one is not allowed to proclaim the universal truth that all lives matter. That, we are told, only diminishes the call to end racism, watering down the cry that black lives matter. The script is loaded with additional ideology – opining on everything from family make-up to transgenderism – and unjust generalizations of groups, especially police officers. Yet, not following the script may bring charges of racism to your doorstep.
