by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist
Words have consequences, and Donald Trump's ceaseless condemnation and disparagement of certain American individuals and institutions are giving birth to a monstrous attack on civilization. Over the past two days at least ten packaged pipe bombs addressed to individuals who have been specific targets of Trump's hateful rhetoric have been discovered in the U.S. mail system.
Early indications are that all of the bombs have been mailed by the same individual or group, and that they originated in the state of Florida. As of this writing, none have detonated and there have mercifully been no injuries or deaths.
The pipe bombs discovered so far have been addressed to philanthropist George Soros, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, former CIA Director John Brennan (sent to the CNN studio where he works), two to Congresswoman Maxine Waters (one to her DC office and another to her office in Los Angeles), former Attorney General Eric Holder, actor Robert De Niro, and two to former Vice President Joe Biden. All of the intended victims were either past or present Democratic officials or known critics of Donald Trump - and all had, at one time or another, been targets of Trump's vile and abusive hate speech.
The pipe bomb addressed to former Attorney General Eric Holder had an incorrect address and was returned to the Florida office of the person listed on the return address: Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz has also been a past target of Trump's verbal abuse.
The FBI is investigating, and even though Donald Trump has also heaped scathing abuse on that federal agency, it will ultimately engage its world renown investigative abilities and find the demented person who was behind this vile attack on America. But until that happens, we are left to the views of professional speculators as they scurry to pound their own political agendas into theories that will satisfy a gullible public.
One theory currently being put out by extreme right-wingers, people like Lou Dobbs, is that "liberals" are somehow behind all of the mayhem, and that it is a plot to make conservatives look bad. A second right-wing talking point is that this spate of bomb-mailings was not meant to be serious because all of the bombs were sent to individuals who have good security set-ups in place. Nobody was going to get hurt. (Except maybe for some underpaid security person - or a mail carrier - or a kid riding his skateboard past a mailbox where one of the packages accidentally detonates - on anyone of dozens of other innocent bystanders.) Chances are almost non-existent that the perpetrator would succeed in murdering a former President with his device, but thousands of underlings could have their lives inadvertently upended or destroyed by this criminal madman.
Donald Trump and his parrot, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, both took to the microphones yesterday to condemn this wave of potentially lethal violence, but Trump could not let it rest at that. Later in the evening he began barking about the need to bring down the levels of hate rhetoric - and he went directly to his favorite nemesis, the press, and credited them with creating the situation and atmosphere that gave rise to the mayhem. Trump, being Trump, never accepted any responsibility for the rising levels of anger and hate in America.
Credit is always his, blame never is.
I did hear one commentator saying that the levels of hatred must be brought under control before "someone gets killed." Heather Heyer would probably like to have the opportunity to respond to that - but she can't because she's already dead - killed by one of Trump's "fine people" when he deliberately drove his car into a crowd of protesters at Charlottesville. And the news staff at the local newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, might even want to do a feature about violence inspired by hate speech, but they have been seriously understaffed since five of their colleagues were gunned down and killed at work last June. Those hard-working people were journalists - an occupation Donald Trump routinely refers to as the "enemy of the people" and whose work product he describes as "terrible," "garbage," and "fake news."
But, it is what it is. A few ideological toads will bandy about wild theories saying that the "liberals" are behind all of this, but, in the end it will be some lone lunatic who has been sitting in a dark room listening to Fox News and masturbating to Donald Trump's bellicose threats and taunts against the media and people he regards as his enemies. The FBI will find this person - and it will be an angry white man with deep psychological issues and a big assortment of guns. A third-grader could write the profile. The hard part will be sifting through all of the people who match that description - aka Trump's base - and coming up with the right person.
Some left-wing activists are awful people. They heckle and insult Republican officials who dare to dine in public. But some right-wing activists, on the other hand, have a strong preference for bloodshed. It's time for both groups to settle down and show some tolerance, but that seems to be little more than a fleeting fantasy in the time of Trump.
Trump's unrelenting hate-mongering is taking us over a cliff and into an abyss of ignorance and intolerance. For America to regain its sanity and moral bearing, Donald John Trump needs to sit down and shut the hell up. Unfortunately, those things aren't in his nature.
Citizen Journalist
Words have consequences, and Donald Trump's ceaseless condemnation and disparagement of certain American individuals and institutions are giving birth to a monstrous attack on civilization. Over the past two days at least ten packaged pipe bombs addressed to individuals who have been specific targets of Trump's hateful rhetoric have been discovered in the U.S. mail system.
Early indications are that all of the bombs have been mailed by the same individual or group, and that they originated in the state of Florida. As of this writing, none have detonated and there have mercifully been no injuries or deaths.
The pipe bombs discovered so far have been addressed to philanthropist George Soros, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Barack and Michelle Obama, former CIA Director John Brennan (sent to the CNN studio where he works), two to Congresswoman Maxine Waters (one to her DC office and another to her office in Los Angeles), former Attorney General Eric Holder, actor Robert De Niro, and two to former Vice President Joe Biden. All of the intended victims were either past or present Democratic officials or known critics of Donald Trump - and all had, at one time or another, been targets of Trump's vile and abusive hate speech.
The pipe bomb addressed to former Attorney General Eric Holder had an incorrect address and was returned to the Florida office of the person listed on the return address: Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Congresswoman Wasserman Schultz has also been a past target of Trump's verbal abuse.
The FBI is investigating, and even though Donald Trump has also heaped scathing abuse on that federal agency, it will ultimately engage its world renown investigative abilities and find the demented person who was behind this vile attack on America. But until that happens, we are left to the views of professional speculators as they scurry to pound their own political agendas into theories that will satisfy a gullible public.
One theory currently being put out by extreme right-wingers, people like Lou Dobbs, is that "liberals" are somehow behind all of the mayhem, and that it is a plot to make conservatives look bad. A second right-wing talking point is that this spate of bomb-mailings was not meant to be serious because all of the bombs were sent to individuals who have good security set-ups in place. Nobody was going to get hurt. (Except maybe for some underpaid security person - or a mail carrier - or a kid riding his skateboard past a mailbox where one of the packages accidentally detonates - on anyone of dozens of other innocent bystanders.) Chances are almost non-existent that the perpetrator would succeed in murdering a former President with his device, but thousands of underlings could have their lives inadvertently upended or destroyed by this criminal madman.
Donald Trump and his parrot, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, both took to the microphones yesterday to condemn this wave of potentially lethal violence, but Trump could not let it rest at that. Later in the evening he began barking about the need to bring down the levels of hate rhetoric - and he went directly to his favorite nemesis, the press, and credited them with creating the situation and atmosphere that gave rise to the mayhem. Trump, being Trump, never accepted any responsibility for the rising levels of anger and hate in America.
Credit is always his, blame never is.
I did hear one commentator saying that the levels of hatred must be brought under control before "someone gets killed." Heather Heyer would probably like to have the opportunity to respond to that - but she can't because she's already dead - killed by one of Trump's "fine people" when he deliberately drove his car into a crowd of protesters at Charlottesville. And the news staff at the local newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, might even want to do a feature about violence inspired by hate speech, but they have been seriously understaffed since five of their colleagues were gunned down and killed at work last June. Those hard-working people were journalists - an occupation Donald Trump routinely refers to as the "enemy of the people" and whose work product he describes as "terrible," "garbage," and "fake news."
But, it is what it is. A few ideological toads will bandy about wild theories saying that the "liberals" are behind all of this, but, in the end it will be some lone lunatic who has been sitting in a dark room listening to Fox News and masturbating to Donald Trump's bellicose threats and taunts against the media and people he regards as his enemies. The FBI will find this person - and it will be an angry white man with deep psychological issues and a big assortment of guns. A third-grader could write the profile. The hard part will be sifting through all of the people who match that description - aka Trump's base - and coming up with the right person.
Some left-wing activists are awful people. They heckle and insult Republican officials who dare to dine in public. But some right-wing activists, on the other hand, have a strong preference for bloodshed. It's time for both groups to settle down and show some tolerance, but that seems to be little more than a fleeting fantasy in the time of Trump.
Trump's unrelenting hate-mongering is taking us over a cliff and into an abyss of ignorance and intolerance. For America to regain its sanity and moral bearing, Donald John Trump needs to sit down and shut the hell up. Unfortunately, those things aren't in his nature.
1 comment:
Mirrors, not plots by liberals, but mirrors make conservatives look bad.
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