by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
I just climbed out of the car following a long drive home from Kansas City, and during the several hours on the road I had time to compose, in my head, musings for today's posting. By the time I reached home, my thoughts were tightly organized and damned near grandiloquent. Now, however, as they finally spill onto the keyboard, all of that righteous indignation may fizzle and frazzle in the process.
I hope not.
Let me begin here:
I am sick and tired of having to be ashamed of our country's leaders. From Nixon's ever-expanding web of deceit and revenge known as "Watergate, through Reagan's secret sale of arms to Iran to surreptitiously fund revolutionary activity in Central America, to Bill Clinton's barely legal, frat boy dalliance with a White House intern, to George W. Bush's misdirected war in the Middle East, I have shuddered in disbelief for far too long as the American presidency gets dragged through the mud by sleazeball politicians whose personal and political ambitions seldom match the needs and desires of the people they were elected to lead.
Thank heaven we had an eight-year respite from the madness with the election of Barack Obama, an individual of honor and integrity, a leader respected around the globe by individuals yearning for fairness and freedom as they struggle to conduct their lives in a world that is all too often controlled by gangsters and greed-heads.
But the pendulum has swung back toward intolerance again, and the United States now finds itself entering the era of Trump, a man who, with barely four months in office, has offended our allies, enriched his family and friends, weakened protections for the poor and suffering, and emboldened the worst elements of American society. The word "Orwellian" seems grotesquely inadequate to describe the world being created by Donald Trump and his rich, uncaring cronies.
My initial plan was to use this posting to go off on Trump's absurd withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, a decision that will ultimately hurt all Americans as well as American businesses. But Trump was stirring his base with bravado and bullshit, and managed to make "climate change" sound like a liberal conspiracy to people who can't count past ten without taking off their shoes.
To criticize Trump, however, speed is of the essence. Before I could begin banging out my thoughts on this egregious betrayal of the planet and the future generations who will try to inhabit it, Trump had shot off on another outrageous tangent, one that also merits painful examination.
Yesterday Great Britain suffered its second terrorist attack in two weeks - and its third in three months - with the massacre that occurred on London Bridge. Donald Trump, being the consummate narcissist, sprang to his Twitter account and quickly tried to make the whole thing about him - in particular about how the American courts are thwarting his will by blocking his travel (Muslim) ban. If the United States of America would give him complete power over travel and immigration, our country would never have to worry about terrorism again - or personal liberties.
Except, of course, that isn't true because a big crop of terrorists already reside and operate in America - only they are by-and-large not Muslims. Over the past two weeks two outrageous incidents occurred in this country, both inspired by racist beliefs and both committed by people who could have very likely been Trump supporters. Trump, or more likely his staff, acknowledged one of the incidents a couple of days after it occurred, though the tweet bearing the acknowledgment did not use the word "terrorism," and the second incident apparently drew no White House notice whatsoever. Obviously, it is only terrorism if Muslims are the perpetrators.
The first incident happened two weeks ago when a madman in Portland, Oregon, was interrupted in his loud harangue of two Muslim women by three men who sought to quiet him and protect the women. The mouthy provocateur pulled a knife and stabbed all three good Samaritans, killing two and severely injuring the third. Call it what you will Donald, but a hate crime inspired by religious intolerance that results in murder is terrorism by almost anyone's definition. And in this case the terrorist was a white U.S. citizen who had not entered the country as an adult. He was born here and lived here - and he resided in a shell of ignorance and intolerance that was undoubtedly formed by listening to pundits and politicians whose goal was to make America hate again.
Last week in Washington state, a young white man driving a large pick-up truck intentionally ran down two American Indian men while shouting racial slurs out of his truck window. One of the men died and the other was hospitalized. Again, it doesn't take a Constitutional lawyer to recognize this as a hate crime - one committed by a terrorist. The terrorist, however, was not a Muslim and therefore did not merit the tiniest of tweets from you.
Terrorism is already here, Donald. It is all around us. Some of it may be inspired from holy books like the Koran and the Bible, but most comes from hatred and intolerance that is propagated and learned in society. Building walls and enacting travel bans makes segments of society feel marginalized and threatened - and those same types of acts serve to empower people who feel their own places on the social and economic ladders are threatened by these culturally diverse newcomers.
Ignorance and insecurity breed fear, fear breeds contempt, and contempt breeds violence.
But you already know that, don't you, Donald.
Citizen Journalist
by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
I just climbed out of the car following a long drive home from Kansas City, and during the several hours on the road I had time to compose, in my head, musings for today's posting. By the time I reached home, my thoughts were tightly organized and damned near grandiloquent. Now, however, as they finally spill onto the keyboard, all of that righteous indignation may fizzle and frazzle in the process.
I hope not.
Let me begin here:
I am sick and tired of having to be ashamed of our country's leaders. From Nixon's ever-expanding web of deceit and revenge known as "Watergate, through Reagan's secret sale of arms to Iran to surreptitiously fund revolutionary activity in Central America, to Bill Clinton's barely legal, frat boy dalliance with a White House intern, to George W. Bush's misdirected war in the Middle East, I have shuddered in disbelief for far too long as the American presidency gets dragged through the mud by sleazeball politicians whose personal and political ambitions seldom match the needs and desires of the people they were elected to lead.
Thank heaven we had an eight-year respite from the madness with the election of Barack Obama, an individual of honor and integrity, a leader respected around the globe by individuals yearning for fairness and freedom as they struggle to conduct their lives in a world that is all too often controlled by gangsters and greed-heads.
But the pendulum has swung back toward intolerance again, and the United States now finds itself entering the era of Trump, a man who, with barely four months in office, has offended our allies, enriched his family and friends, weakened protections for the poor and suffering, and emboldened the worst elements of American society. The word "Orwellian" seems grotesquely inadequate to describe the world being created by Donald Trump and his rich, uncaring cronies.
My initial plan was to use this posting to go off on Trump's absurd withdrawal of the United States from the Paris Climate Accord, a decision that will ultimately hurt all Americans as well as American businesses. But Trump was stirring his base with bravado and bullshit, and managed to make "climate change" sound like a liberal conspiracy to people who can't count past ten without taking off their shoes.
To criticize Trump, however, speed is of the essence. Before I could begin banging out my thoughts on this egregious betrayal of the planet and the future generations who will try to inhabit it, Trump had shot off on another outrageous tangent, one that also merits painful examination.
Yesterday Great Britain suffered its second terrorist attack in two weeks - and its third in three months - with the massacre that occurred on London Bridge. Donald Trump, being the consummate narcissist, sprang to his Twitter account and quickly tried to make the whole thing about him - in particular about how the American courts are thwarting his will by blocking his travel (Muslim) ban. If the United States of America would give him complete power over travel and immigration, our country would never have to worry about terrorism again - or personal liberties.
Except, of course, that isn't true because a big crop of terrorists already reside and operate in America - only they are by-and-large not Muslims. Over the past two weeks two outrageous incidents occurred in this country, both inspired by racist beliefs and both committed by people who could have very likely been Trump supporters. Trump, or more likely his staff, acknowledged one of the incidents a couple of days after it occurred, though the tweet bearing the acknowledgment did not use the word "terrorism," and the second incident apparently drew no White House notice whatsoever. Obviously, it is only terrorism if Muslims are the perpetrators.
The first incident happened two weeks ago when a madman in Portland, Oregon, was interrupted in his loud harangue of two Muslim women by three men who sought to quiet him and protect the women. The mouthy provocateur pulled a knife and stabbed all three good Samaritans, killing two and severely injuring the third. Call it what you will Donald, but a hate crime inspired by religious intolerance that results in murder is terrorism by almost anyone's definition. And in this case the terrorist was a white U.S. citizen who had not entered the country as an adult. He was born here and lived here - and he resided in a shell of ignorance and intolerance that was undoubtedly formed by listening to pundits and politicians whose goal was to make America hate again.
Last week in Washington state, a young white man driving a large pick-up truck intentionally ran down two American Indian men while shouting racial slurs out of his truck window. One of the men died and the other was hospitalized. Again, it doesn't take a Constitutional lawyer to recognize this as a hate crime - one committed by a terrorist. The terrorist, however, was not a Muslim and therefore did not merit the tiniest of tweets from you.
Terrorism is already here, Donald. It is all around us. Some of it may be inspired from holy books like the Koran and the Bible, but most comes from hatred and intolerance that is propagated and learned in society. Building walls and enacting travel bans makes segments of society feel marginalized and threatened - and those same types of acts serve to empower people who feel their own places on the social and economic ladders are threatened by these culturally diverse newcomers.
Ignorance and insecurity breed fear, fear breeds contempt, and contempt breeds violence.
But you already know that, don't you, Donald.
1 comment:
To suggest that the Donald operates with a plan misunderstands the depths of his ignorance, which is what makes him so very, very dangerous. He's been handed more power than he knew existed by supporters who are counting on him to redress the wrongs of a previous century. In the meantime, he subverts his own associates, communicates state secrets to dining-room companions and uses Twitter to settle political scores. What could possibly go wrong?
Post a Comment