
āWe should embrace the efforts of Fulton County DA Fani Willis to seek justice and accountability in the attempted steal of the 2020 election.ā MEME
Hawaii is the most Asian American state in the nation, and my heart hurts for all the victims of the Maui wildfires. This is definitely a āthere but for fortuneā moment.
I lived and worked in Honolulu on Oahu for two years. Maui was for vacations and seeing family. As you know, Filipinos are all over the island. My sister and kin used to live in Napili, Kaanapali, and Kihei. Weād do things like take the long drive to Hana. But they always avoided Old Lahaina Town as too touristy. Now I regret never spending much time there. The pictures of the destruction are devastating, and the history connecting us to our past is irreplaceable. Yes, the death count will keep rising and thatās the most tragic.
But it can all stay alive through the stories we will tell.
Please remember Maui through a charitable aid entity of your choice.
Pro-democracy movement, anyone?
We knew a historic fourth indictment against the twice impeached, criminally indicted former president was going to happen. And now that it has, there can be only one reaction by every American.
Are you ready for Americaās pro-democracy movement?
Like the one I saw begin in the Philippines 40 years ago this month when Benigno Aquino returned from exile to Manila, only to be gunned down. (I talk about it in my show).
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In the U.S. in 2023, we should embrace the efforts of Fulton County DA Fani Willis to seek justice and accountability in the attempted steal of the 2020 election.
The 41-count indictment names Trump and 19 people, including his lawyers Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman, Sidney Powell, and even his chief of staff Mark Meadows. All were unnamed in the third indictment of Jack Smith. Theyāre name in the fourth.
Yes, theyāre all innocent until proven guilty, but thereās a lot of evidence and thereās also 31 unindicted co-conspirators, who may feel ready to throw someone under the bus whose name rhymes with frump.
In the first count alone, there are 161 acts of criminality charged, from making false statements, concocting a fake elector scheme, harassing and intimidating election workers, soliciting high-ranking U.S. Department of Justice officials, soliciting Vice President Pence, breach of election equipment, general obstruction in the āfurtherance of the conspiracy and the Cover-up,ā and soliciting state legislators and high-ranking state officials.
Youāll recall the Trump conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who felt threatened when Trump asked him to āfind 11, 780 votes, which is one more than we have. Because we won the state.ā
Youāve heard that one. If thatās all you recall, good. Now add another 160 just as damning moments, such as Trump telling aide John McEntee to come up with a strategy to disrupt and delay the official count on Jan. 6. āAn overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy,ā the indictment reads in Act 19.
Thereās 161 acts in count 1 of the 41-count indictment alone.
Each act within the 41 counts comes with a mandatory minimum sentence of 5-20 years.
And it had to be this voluminous, considering the framework of the racketeering charges. Done under the state version of the federal RICO ACT (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, signed into law by Nixon in 1970), itās the law that targets groups of individuals who commit a series of crimes in an ongoing criminal concern. Itās usually reserved for organized crime mobs and gangsters.
In this case, itās organized political players attempting to steal our democracy.
The narrative laid out by Willis is blunt and stark.
āDefendant Donald John Trump lost the United States presidential election,ā is the first line of the indictment. āOne of the states he lost was Georgia. Trump and the other defendants charged in this indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump. That conspiracy contained a common plan to commit two or more acts of racketeering activity in Fulton County, Georgia, elsewhere in Georgia, and in other states.ā
Thatās the simple narrative. The indictment is more list than narrative, but it tells how many people allegedly were willing to steal the election and break the law in the name of Trump.
This one is so much broader than the narrow set of federal indictments for Jan. 6 brought by Special Prosecutor Jack Smith.
While Smith seems geared to get to trial, Willisā focus is on the depth and breadth of the criminal activity. This wasnāt just Trump. He may have been the leader, but this was a group effort to commit crimes against democracy.
Itās also a state case, which means Trump canāt rely on winning the election and pardoning himself. He will have to fight it, even if he manages to become president again.
But what a specter that would be, with cameras allowed in the courtrooms in Georgia. The whole world will be watching our national civic lesson on whether the U.S. can protect its democracy from historic bad actors at the top.
Just remember: The good guys are the ones protecting the Constitution, not the ones trying to destroy it.
Not free speech
Iāve read over the latest indictment on the disgraced former president who wants to be president again. Donāt get inured to the shock of it. Thatās the real threat to democracy. And yet we also must understand No. 45 is innocent until proven guilty and will no doubt say that his tweets, his misstatements, and his cajoling of officials to help him steal the election was some form of free speech.
But itās not. Not when itās connected to the commission of a crime. In this case, the theft of our democracy.
Free speech I know intimately. And Iām not committing a crime in the pursuit of art. Iāve been preparing and doing my one-man show, āEmil Amok: Lost NPR Hostā¦ā at the San Francisco Fringe.
(Tix are available at Eventbrite, Thurs, Aug.17, 8:30 pm PT and Sat. Aug. 19, 1 pm PT. Itās also coming to New York again, for at least one night Wed., Sept. 6, tickets TBA.)
The show got its first really bad review this week. That I donāt mind. I was an arts critic before I became a critic of just about everything else under the sun; I can take criticism. Critics have the right to free speech.
Still, itās the unfair reviews that bother me.
My show is about the Filipino Asian American history very few Americans know about: My fatherās the first large group to America in the 1920s. They were colonized and brought to the U.S. as an underpaid labor force subject to discrimination and racism.
And then thereās my story. The American born. Treated like I am the immigrant. Itās not āHere Lies Love.ā I donāt sing and dance. I tell the truth.
Just as African Americans know how slavery affected their lives, I know the impact of being a direct descendant of those early colonized Filipinos. Like African Americans, Filipinos were subjected to laws that prevented them from intermarrying, owning property, or voting.
For people of color, this is our shared American experience.
My show examines how that history impacted my life to this day. Itās not a show about grievances about my employment at NPR or about going to Harvard so much.
Iām not the victim. My father was.
My show is about the weight of history that no one knows about. But youāll know about it if you see my show. Is it art? Itās expressive. And sometimes funny.
And thatās whatās unfair about the bad review I got. History is more than 50 percent of the show. Itās Filipino American history for dummies, intended to fight the erasure of Filipino American history in our society.
But the reviewer doesnāt mention it, which only contributes to the cultural erasure of people of color and their history.
See the show for yourself if you can, in its limited run in SF and NYC. Youāll learn about what we have in common and why we fight for justice together.
And youāll see why Iām offended by a critic all too willing to deny our history. It reminds us of the importance of telling our stories. In public. Out loud. To everyone.
Now that is free speech in action. Donald Trump canāt claim a free speech right in his new criminal indictment.
NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on āEmil Amokās Takeout,ā my AAPI micro-talk show. Live @2p Pacific. Livestream on Facebook; my YouTube channel; and Twitter. Catch the recordings on www.amok.com.
Emil Guillermo, a journalist, commentator and public storyteller, writes a column for the Inquirer.netās North American bureau.