A Rant: Police, Politics and Prayer
I really don't know where to begin. More tears than smiles this week...
First, and foremost in my heart, is the murder of George Floyd. If you live in America, this is another incident--in a long, long line--of police brutality and the unwarranted killing of a black man. If you don't live in America, the photo in the above link shows exactly how George Floyd was murdered by an officer of the law kneeling on his neck for over 8 minutes while George continuously gasped that he couldn't breathe. Is this what they teach these days in police academies: subdue an unarmed man, who is not struggling or resisting, by kneeling your total body weight on his neck? They tried to make the excuse that George had a medical condition that contributed to his death. Well, yeah, I guess he did: Kneeling Neck Syndrome, usually found only in black males. Thankfully there were plenty of witnesses and video to totally refute their attempted cover-up. I despair for my country.
Since Donald Trump became president, just a few short years ago--though it seems much, much longer--hate crimes have escalated by 51%. Seriously. 51%. His white supremacist diatribes, his misogyny, his glorified elitism and good ol' boy mentality have brought out the absolute worst of all that is wrong with America. His minions have crawled out from under their rocks, out of the dark corners of society, to support bigotry and ignorance for a man's ego-driven quest to remake America in his own image. And how's that working out for you, Bubba?
Recently he bragged about not getting COVID-19 because he was taking malaria pills. Pills proven to NOT help with the virus and in fact can be harmful enough to kill you if you don't actually have malaria. A few weeks past he was talking about injecting bleach because well, everyone knows it can kill the virus on surfaces so why not internally as well? My question is: Why are we listening to someone with NO medical knowledge, no real facts, no clue whatsoever about what is going on in the real world. Why aren't we being given timely, accurate information from the CDC or WHO or Dr. Fauci...or for crying in the night, just anyone with medical expertise?
Over the weekend, Trump spent some quality time, between rounds of golf, to stage a lengthy and vicious Twitter attack on Joe Scarborough, a man who has often criticized him. With no regard for the truth--about an accident that happened nearly 20 years ago--and without a shred of decency towards the grieving husband or family, Trump just plows on spewing mindless fantastical lies. Hopefully he'll keep right on plowing, getting those furrows deep enough to fall into come November.
Then, to top it all off... Twitter put their fact-checker icon on two of Trump's posts a few days ago, which of course, outraged him. What he posted was false, Twitter verified it was false and said, nope, this is not true and put their check marks on the two posts. After an epic tantrum, he's now using executive privilege to "deal with" the three social media platforms, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, with some kind of insta-legislation. Payback's a bitch if you cross him--as we've seen countless times over the past few years.
Yesterday, heart sick about George Floyd, fearful about the true dire state of my country's future, mourning the hundreds of thousands of lives lost to a virus with no end in sight...I happened upon this picture. It struck me viscerally and pretty much summed things up for me.
You know how a picture's worth a thousand words...??
First, and foremost in my heart, is the murder of George Floyd. If you live in America, this is another incident--in a long, long line--of police brutality and the unwarranted killing of a black man. If you don't live in America, the photo in the above link shows exactly how George Floyd was murdered by an officer of the law kneeling on his neck for over 8 minutes while George continuously gasped that he couldn't breathe. Is this what they teach these days in police academies: subdue an unarmed man, who is not struggling or resisting, by kneeling your total body weight on his neck? They tried to make the excuse that George had a medical condition that contributed to his death. Well, yeah, I guess he did: Kneeling Neck Syndrome, usually found only in black males. Thankfully there were plenty of witnesses and video to totally refute their attempted cover-up. I despair for my country.
Since Donald Trump became president, just a few short years ago--though it seems much, much longer--hate crimes have escalated by 51%. Seriously. 51%. His white supremacist diatribes, his misogyny, his glorified elitism and good ol' boy mentality have brought out the absolute worst of all that is wrong with America. His minions have crawled out from under their rocks, out of the dark corners of society, to support bigotry and ignorance for a man's ego-driven quest to remake America in his own image. And how's that working out for you, Bubba?
Recently he bragged about not getting COVID-19 because he was taking malaria pills. Pills proven to NOT help with the virus and in fact can be harmful enough to kill you if you don't actually have malaria. A few weeks past he was talking about injecting bleach because well, everyone knows it can kill the virus on surfaces so why not internally as well? My question is: Why are we listening to someone with NO medical knowledge, no real facts, no clue whatsoever about what is going on in the real world. Why aren't we being given timely, accurate information from the CDC or WHO or Dr. Fauci...or for crying in the night, just anyone with medical expertise?
Over the weekend, Trump spent some quality time, between rounds of golf, to stage a lengthy and vicious Twitter attack on Joe Scarborough, a man who has often criticized him. With no regard for the truth--about an accident that happened nearly 20 years ago--and without a shred of decency towards the grieving husband or family, Trump just plows on spewing mindless fantastical lies. Hopefully he'll keep right on plowing, getting those furrows deep enough to fall into come November.
Then, to top it all off... Twitter put their fact-checker icon on two of Trump's posts a few days ago, which of course, outraged him. What he posted was false, Twitter verified it was false and said, nope, this is not true and put their check marks on the two posts. After an epic tantrum, he's now using executive privilege to "deal with" the three social media platforms, Instagram, Twitter and Facebook, with some kind of insta-legislation. Payback's a bitch if you cross him--as we've seen countless times over the past few years.
Yesterday, heart sick about George Floyd, fearful about the true dire state of my country's future, mourning the hundreds of thousands of lives lost to a virus with no end in sight...I happened upon this picture. It struck me viscerally and pretty much summed things up for me.
You know how a picture's worth a thousand words...??
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