I often wonder if there are any studies being done about this. Those in other countries see it in the mass murders here. They see it in the shocking win of Trump in 2016, and have been horrified that Americans let these things happen. They still have a love affair -or fascination - with the fables that are America via films and the possibility of a better life if moving there.
The other evening some of us in Democrats Abroad Spain met via Zoom to discuss the ´state of affairs´. I had thought that we were going to be sharing ideas for what we can do, but it was really a discussion of hopelessness. I encouraged them to join this group, Heather's group, and, as an afterthought for the people in charge to share Chop Wood Carry Water.
For decades, all of us thought we were living in an amazing country. If your white, you´re safe. If you're middle class, you´re ¨rich¨. Somewhere in the 70's, without being aware, we became the frogs in an enormous pot of water. With Reagan, the stove was turned to low. It simmered as changes were being made outside of the pot where we were swimming in glorious ignorance because we felt smug and safe. Rules and laws like the Fairness Doctrine were changed or ended. Corporations were given the status of ¨people¨. We kept swimming, although the water was getting warmer.
In 1991 Rodney King was beaten. The cops were acquitted and a riot ensued. TMZ has a message from Rodney Kings daughter to the family of Tyre Nichols. Sandy Hook happened in 2012 and there was not a peep from anyone going about their daily lives. In 2015 a narcissist made fun of someone with a disability and became president of the United States - not because of the popular vote but because of the deeply flawed Electoral College. He created a crack in the carefully constructed GOP roadmap to power allowing vermin, snakes, and cons to slither in on his coat tails.
If we take the time to look back, we can see the journey to this moment. Are we going to jump from the pot and become who we think that we have been and are, or are we going to become dinner for the minority? Each American needs to own his/her responsibility in all that got us here and be brave enough to fight for every single American - black, brown, yellow, red, white, woman, man, child, LBGTQ+, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Buddhist, + +++++
Citizens United decision has become worse than imagined. Dark money controls the votes of the politicians who could solve the mass destruction by automatic weapons. Dark money continues to support the amoral criminal trump! Dark money controls the supreme stench court! Dark money continues to exert control over more and more state legislatures!
We can fix this. All we need is the will and the leadership. John Lewis and Martin Luther King showed us the way. We need a new leader and a willing electorate.
Yes, as jaded and cynical as I am, I know we *can* 'fix this'. The real question is will we? If that is to become a reality, we do, indeed, need not just a new leader, but a number of them. And they will need to possess the best of true leadership skills. For the electorate will only become 'willing' if it is led to the point of being so. It won't become so by being bullied, morally harangued, or deluged with platitudes and attention-grabbing but essentially empty rhetoric.
The divide in our country won't be bridged by such, nor by good intentions. It will be bridged in the end by people who will possess the ability to speak as Americans to all Americans and be perceived first and foremost by the majority of them as such when they do so, not as Democrats or Republicans or partisans of any stripe. They may indeed be one of those things, but they will be the type of people themselves who self-identify as Americans first, foremost and always, because in the end that is truly who they are.
I have no doubt these people are out there. My doubts stem from the question of whether or not we ourselves will be able to put our own identities as Americans first, lessen our gaze through a partisan lens and recognize them if and when we're presented with an opportunity to do so.
I like imagining such great leaders, but when this has ever happened in America in the past? Obama and Carter come to mind, but both left the country more divided. Maybe Eisenhower?
I actually don’t believe the problem is the lack of very competent leaders with integrity. A few always are out there, and some of them are even inspirational and dedicated. Instead, I think the populace of America (& other nations) has changed dramatically over recent decades. Being able to lead us with the trust and respect of the “large majority” has become a sad and quaint memory, I’m afraid.
Over 50 - 60 years, we’ve been through enormous changes in our social values.
That would have been hard enough to any nation with a large number of conservatives to digest. But especially in such an energetic and individualistic country as the U.S., with a very long history of ruthless oppression of so many minorities.
But we’ve ALSO, for 30+ yrs., been trying to adapt to tech changes coming at light speed :
- 24/7 cable “news”
- the internet
- pocket computers/video cameras/TVs
- social media
- computer viruses and hackers
- online education and porn
- the dark web
-etc., etc.
And now comes AI!!!
I believe that this combination of social and technological changes has totally overwhelmed Americans. To reduce our stress, we began grasping for easy answers and righteous indignation. We became setups for propaganda promoters that gave us the sense of being members of the team fighting against Evil.
Ultimately, many of us let ourselves become deeply self-propagandized. Me included!
All the while, the people with obscene amounts of money and desire for power/fame have been doing what they always do, manipulating the system and events to their advantage. In simpler and calmer times, they would have been challenged by a vigorous and independent media that demanded accountability. Some of our media try today, but there’s just FAR too many cross-currents for any story thread to stick with us for long.
My conclusions:
We won’t get out of this mess till we
a) recognize our overwhelmed situation
b) choose to stop our self-propagandizing
c) dramatically control social media
d) create a new economic approach that deals much better with the huge income inequalities that drive deep US grievances, mainly through truly fair wages.
But first, Trumpism must die and a responsible conservative party with a moral compass must be reborn.
I think all you've said here is true, particularly that last.
We have, in fact, had great and effective leaders in government and elsewhere, though none lately. Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Eisenhower as President to some extent; JFK, in spite of his faults, showed great leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis and in confronting George Wallace at the schoolhouse door. His solutions to those problems were imperfect, as most solutions are, but they effectively protected the country in the first instance and continued to move it in the right direction in the second. And of course, there's MLK.
Carter failed not only as a great leader but even as a good one for a number of reasons. Being a good, well-intentioned man isn't the same as being a good or great leader. Ditto Obama. Ditto Biden, though I'll not say he isn't at least a pretty good leader, all things considered.
The mistake we often make is in putting too much emphasis on the leadership of one individual. In the case of some I listed, the effect of their individual leadership is undeniable. But, in a nod to your assessment of the role 'tech' has played in our politics and society for these past decades, those were indeed simpler times.
If we're looking for one 'leader' who will by dint of their 'great' individual leadership get us out of this mess, we're not going to find them. It will take a number of them in different areas of our society, politics and government. And as I noted, it will be up to us to recognize them when the opportunity presents itself, and then *allow* them to lead. Which we won't do until we start evaluating ideas and solutions on their merits, not on who or where they came from. And to do this, we do indeed have to admit we have a problem. Which is basically that we're human and prone to brainwashing ourselves with self-generated propaganda.
In the end, if we don't get out of this mess, which won't happen anytime soon, the fault will not lay in our stars, but in ourselves. For not recognizing them.
I agree that there will not be one leader. I think change will have to come from the bottom up, and new leaders will emerge. I'm reading Timothy Snyder's "On Tyranny" - there's a beautiful graphic edition now - and it's full of wisdom. One chapter is titled "Investigate." Snyder says, "Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.' If all of us do a little bit of this, I think we can neutralize misinformation and positive change will happen.
Yes, Stephen, the will and the leadership, and one more Resource: love.
Dr. King: "Hatred cannot drive out hatred; only love can do that."
Mahatma Gandhi: "Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.
Jesus: (Matt 5) "‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."
This is not about mushy (though lovely) romantic love. It's about the power, the energy, the Source of non-physical resources that are available within and around each of us. When we call upon this Source to guide us to the actions we need to take to "fix this," we have a much better chance of success.
And I would add to that, one thing that helps me to "love my enemy," is to increase my understanding of how people get to be "the enemy" in the first place, how people get to choose hatred over love. And for that I turn to Christian Christian Picciolini, a former white supremacist /violent extremist, who has dedicated himself to helping people overcome their hate. "I wasn't born into hate," he says, in this powerful TED talk about his journey. It's well worth your time to read the article and listen to the talk. Blessings,
I saw a television program about Christian Picciolini several years ago. Among his other healing work, he brought one of the marchers from Charlottesville to meet Heather Heyer's mother. It was amazing to see that confused young man start to shift his attitudes after talking to Mr. Picciolini. It was even more surprising to watch the reconciliation between that young man and Heather's mother.
At that point, I wished Mr. Picciolini could train a whole "army" of people to help white supremacists who were swept into the movement because of their lack of support in life and need to "belong" somewhere. It's difficult work and it takes time, but what Christian Picciolini did was really inspiring.
Thank you CC. I didn't know about this program. I"m going to look on youtube. I think Christian's skilled and loving experiences show how this can work. I love your idea of an "army" of people to help. I wonder what Christian would say to that. I"m going to ask him on twitter.
He might need some funding if he were able to find more people who could help do his work. You just jogged my memory. I think I remember that he got some funding from the government, but that went away when the former president arrived in D.C. Yes, here's an old story about just that subject. The information below is just the first few paragraphs of the story.
Liz Goodwin·Senior National Affairs Reporter
August 15, 2017
"Christian Picciolini, founder of Life After Hate. (Photo: Teresa Crawford/AP)
WASHINGTON — Christian Picciolini, a former neo-Nazi leader who now helps deradicalize white supremacists, was looking forward to expanding his efforts with funding from the federal government, authorized in January.
But in June, Picciolini learned the Trump administration had rescinded the $400,000 grant for his Chicago-based group, called Life After Hate, after then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly reviewed the list of organizations receiving money under a program to counter violent extremism in the United States. Kelly said the review was to ensure “taxpayer dollars go to programs with the highest likelihood of success, that support the men and women on the front lines of this fight, and that can be self-sustaining into the future.” Kelly rescinded funding for 12 groups and added seven others.
Picciolini, however, wonders whether his group’s focus on white supremacism, rather than extreme radical Islam, may be behind the decision, though he stresses he doesn’t know — he never heard back from the department about why Life After Hate was excluded."
What a well done timeline of this American journey, to which we add the complicating factor of Russian subversion, and look for the ways we survived in order to build our future.
Yes. So much evidence regarding Russia and the Americans who have/are helping with misinformation. I truly believe that we will not just survive, but truly become a future for all.
Gailee, Admittedly, I never will submit to hopelessness and, frankly, repeatedly rekindle resolve from my firm belief that it is impossible to foretell precisely when any of our endeavors will reach critical mass, suddenly creating change. Still, I very much would value knowing what drives your belief that we “truly [will] become a future for all.” Thanks in advance for any insights you might share.
Yes, it is becoming more and more difficult to have faith that the future will be brighter when every day there are more atrocities in the news despite so many working so hard for the common good. Something cruel and evil is taking over the minds and souls of too many of our people. We can't reach them by logic or by facts. How can we combat the propaganda that makes them willfully ignorant and hateful?
Teach them while they're young: empathy, kindness, consideration, fairness. Which would be more likely to be integrated into public education than private.
Mim, I read on this site not long ago that we start by becoming “Truth Warriors” Beyond that, as I’ve posted in the past, I carry a slip of paper on my person at all time from SCOTUS Emeritus Justice Louis Brandeis, who once wrote “Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.”
As a final point, I would note that both Substack hosts and subscriber voices let us glimpse what is truly worth seeking, worth having, and worth doing.
I know, Barbara Jo, but we who seek all those things cannot gain traction with those who despise us who work for the common good, and we just can't seem to penetrate their bubble enough to show them that light and love are better than cruelty, evil and disinformation. I keep trying. We all must keep trying. But it's difficult to hold onto a hope for the future, near or distant, when you're 80 years old, as I just turned, and all the good we accomplished in the '60s is being wrested away. But I will keep trying. We all must keep trying.
I believe because there are so many working towards change - which is why the Dark Side is frantic. The news and often sub-stacks share the darkness that seems to be engulfing us now because it is flashy and sells and adds to the chaos.
However, there are so many working and fighting for democracy and the freedoms of all. It is messy. It is painful. It is dangerous. Just like America's War for Independence, many sit on the sidelines and moan without doing one of the many things available to them - like the opportunities offered via Chop Wood Carry Water. Look at all President Biden has been able to accomplish with the Dark Side doing everything it can to keep him from his goals of a better country for all the people. What if each of us did just one thing that applauds him in public for each of his accomplishments?
There may be even darker days, months, years ahead - as there were in the country where I now live which is so very proud of it's fledgling democracy and transparency.
I believe that we need these dark times to challenge everyone who gives the rights of all lip service only to stand up, speak out, demand, expect nothing less. Don't buy products from the corporations that support the Dark Side. Speak out on social media against the liars and cheaters. Roar to the DOJ that you expect nothing less than prison for all of those who tried and are trying to destroy our democracy and rights.
It is up to every single one of us to be present and active because if ever single one of is not, it may take many years and a lot of pain before America can have the right for the Statue of Liberty to lift the lamp, with honesty, integrity, and truth, on its shore.
I believe that Dan Rather's message describes much more powerfully than I. This is it.
Gailee, I just commented about how discouraged I am, but your eloquent post is reminding me that there are enough of "us" to ensure, by our continuing actions, a brighter future than the present darkness.
Hi Gailee, I so very deeply appreciated your thoughtful and authentic reply. I would start by noting, as you stated in your original comment, that for the early part of my life I, too, was overtaken by gratitude to have been born in the United States. However, like most, as I became increasingly educated, I also became increasingly critical and increasingly aware that any meaningful transformation would entail a reckoning the likes of which I’ve never experienced except for within relatively small groups.
Still, even as most generations, at times, have been maligned as apathetic and uncaring, each also has been underscored by movements, wherein, at times, even a single seemingly insignificant effort produced powerful results.
I suppose because we rarely know how the impact of our actions might ripple out or who may be touched, that’s reason enough why, although the fruits of our labors can’t always be seen, they matter immensely.
On a more personal level. I would note I take heart simply from responding to your gorgeously hopeful statement.
Thank you, Gailee, for that recounting. You are spot on.
If I remember correctly you live in San Sebastián? If you have a moment can you email me privately? I’m seeking into about moving to Spain. Thank you!!
I believe Christians have an elevated responsibility in these days when so many attitudes are not being challenged and in fact are sometimes supported or at least tolerated by our “Christian nation.” I am a United Methodist and benefit from the writings of Rev. Benjamin Cramer, website below.
Ben posted last night, “When people are literally dying from mass shootings and police brutality in our country, but our culture just hears the loudest voices in Christianity protesting drag queens and books, we can’t expect people to believe our religion has anything to do with life conquering death.”
I understand the horror of readers of the image of Black cops beating an innocent Black man. I understand how seemingly impossible it is to comprehend their actions. I've been a psychotherapist for over fifty years and both my experience and my training afford me a way to understand and empathize with the Black officers. I offer it to you all here. My field has a name for this horror: it is called "identification with the aggressor." Think of the child of an abusive father, beaten and scorned by his father, who grows up to be an abusive man himself. You wonder, how could this happen? Wouldn't that child grow up to be gentle and kind, to have the kind of love towards his father he wished he could have had? Sometimes that does happen. But just as often, the child, desperate to cope in a violent home, becomes violent himself, sees violence as the solution, as the source of power and control. Indeed, sometimes the child idealizes the violence and sees gentleness and kindness as weak and unmanly.
Imagine if that child instead chose to be gentle and kind? How long would he survive in that system?
Those five Black policemen were all raised in a violent system, and like the child, have learned to cope by identifying with the violence and defying, denying, despising the gentle side of themselves.
Of course it is terrible that these five Black policemen committed this terrible murder. But we need only to look at four hundred years of slavery and violence against their their own fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers to understand that these men, to survive, had "identified with the aggressor."
We lived in South Africa during Apartheid and we often saw examples of Black Policemen being the harshest on their own. Our puzzlement and conclusions on this apparent paradox was similar to your. That being said..and in the midst of trying to view that horrifying video...I still wonder why justice of these acts by police officers is not in better balance
Add to this the powerful, often unconscious, self-loathing born of four hundred years of wide-spread racism, the shadow side of the collective psyche. I think it was no accident that a Black UVA student killed Black fellow students on a bus right after watching a play based on the horrifying treatment of Emmett Till.
Bad parenting is the gift that keeps giving, generation after generation, whether physical abuse, sexual abuse, or simply a lack of skills for instilling self-respect in children. It’s less a symptom of race as of poverty and lack of educational resources. I have no solution, except a concerted effort to teach parenting skills throughout the educational system, and perhaps a mandatory 1-2 year period of national service for every 18 year old.
Yes plus. Parenting, raising children has been massively disrupted by television and screens. The main reason I want universal child care is to get children away from screens and with professionals who provide nurturing and space to grow. They ca also intervene when children are in trouble. We also need a good intervention system. Preschoolers in trouble can become mad ,sad and dangerous teens.
To me it seemed an act of such self-loathing, after, as you say, four hundred years of slavery and violence because of the color of their skin. How do we change this and start a different course?
I haven’t watched the videos. I don’t want to see someone being murdered.
I really appreciate your advice on talking and listening to other's concerns and above all showing respect 🙏 for their feelings
That's the only answer for America 🇺🇸 to rise above our calamities and become better people from sharing it with each other just like Bobby Kennedy said to the people in Indianapolis the night that Martin Luther King was shot. He risked his own safety to calm down a crowd trying to turn ugly. Perhaps somebody like Obama can promote 🤔 peacefulness. America 🇺🇸 has too much dysfunction still from J6
Hope the DOJ proceedings are still fruitful for that and civil rights violations like this crime!!!
Government only works properly if all the people hold it 🤔 accountable
A nation is a being, and ours is very sick. We are not healthy. We show signs everywhere that we are suffering. We are being killed by sick, unhappy people who take out their discontent on people less powerful than they. We are creating the kinds of inhuman organisms you find in Stephen King's novels that terrorize the most innocent among us. What happened to that young man who was trying to get home was purely evil. That's why we can't stop it.
My take on this latest incidence of police violence: it is evidence of the increasing authoritarianism of our social and political culture. Police Departments appear to be set up in an authoritarian model, which is what needs to change. Our guardrails against authoritarianism have traditionally been the First Amendment, (freedom of press, right to speak and protest), and the Courts, (civil and criminal recourse), and legislative actions and oversight.
It is pretty obvious that extreme right-wing leaders like Trump, DeSantis, others leading or legislating in so many states, in Congress, are doing their best to remove those guardrails. Trump did it systematically for four years. Biden is doing his best to restore the guardrails.
The question we have, is how to get Americans to understand that they so often vote against democracy by voting for these people. That is our dilemma.
When those then-police officers encountered Tyre Nichols, they saw him only as he was to them at the moment. They did not see or care to see him as a father, a son, an excellent photographer (see the link that HCR has kindly posted on her page today), a friend. We can, and should condemn those men for what they did, but let’s also admit that every day we do the same. The stupid driver who can’t figure out where they’re going is just stupid or lazy, nothing more. The criminal in the dock is a robber, and that’s all. Political opponents are reactionaries or racists or fascists, not loving children or parents. Perhaps trying not to feel and think that way is a tiny step toward human progress.
In silent protest of FB welcoming Trump, I have deleted my FB account. Too many GOP members have decided money is their god; a tragic state of affairs prompting me to be more politically active. Grrr!
I'm going to stay with Facebook because I have many real and virtual friends and others there who share important or interesting posts. There are also natural history groups whose posts and comments are valuable to me. I do not click on "Sponsored" posts (which are ads), and I have AdBlockPlus to avoid seeing ads, so I am not one Facebook makes money off of. I shall block Trump when he is reinstated there.
Racism affects us all. I come back to this story often when thinking about racism…
Krista Tippett interviews Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa:
“I think… that we have very gravely underestimated the damage that apartheid inflicted on all of us. You know, the damage to our psyches, the damage that has made — I mean, it shocked me. I went to Nigeria when I was working for the World Council of Churches, and I was due to fly to Jos. And so I go to Lagos airport and I get onto the plane and the two pilots in the cockpit are both black. And whee, I just grew inches. You know, it was fantastic because we had been told that blacks can’t do this.
…And we have a smooth takeoff and then we hit the mother and father of turbulence. I mean, it was quite awful, scary. Do you know, I can’t believe it but the first thought that came to my mind was, “Hey, there’s no white men in that cockpit. Are those blacks going to be able to make it?”
And of course, they obviously made it — here I am. But the thing is, I had not known that I was damaged to the extent of thinking that somehow actually what those white people who had kept drumming into us in South Africa about our being inferior, about our being incapable, it had lodged some way in me.”
Donna, thank you for this - a difficult subject to think about, let alone speak, but we need to keep telling the stories, and especially the stories of those non-white role models who demonstrate why that false narrative is wrong...thank goodness we have/had MLK, Jr., Obama, Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Katherine Johnson, Thurgood Marshall, Bayard Rustin, Muhammad Ali, Frederick Douglas, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Taj Mahal....the list is long and distinguished, and growing.
I give you the analogy of police culture and mushrooms.
The mushroom is a fungus with a vast underground root system (the “mycelium”) that quietly exists out of sight without the need for sunlight, and periodically, when the time, the proper temperature, and moisture coincide, the mycelium produces the above-ground fruiting body that we commonly call “toadstools,” or “mushrooms.” We can harvest these fruits, but the below-ground plant that we don’t see, continues.
Police culture exists largely out of the view of the public, and only periodically, when the conditions are wrong and the cameras are running, does the public see the “fruits” of such culture. We are outraged by these periodic “beatings” and “killings,” but the police culture continues.
When you perceive any system to be dysfunctional, I invite you to change your perspective: You will discover that there are people who may be benefitting in big or small ways from the dysfunctionality. They tolerate and perpetuate the status quo, and oppose change.
Let’s think about all those who might possibly benefit from police department dysfunctionality.
• Is it white people who tolerate police violence against black and brown people if it assures the safety of white people?
• Is it white supremacists who want minorities “kept in their place.”
• Is it the politician who needs the police to look the other way when the politician breaks the law? Speeding ticket, domestic abuse, drug use, driving while drunk?
• Is it politicians who ask police to look the other way on behalf of a donor? After all, we believe we live in meritocracy, but to get ahead, we still rely on “who do you know.”
• Is it the police union presidents who need union members’ votes to keep their status and enhanced income.
• Is it lawyers who are on retainer to defend the police department?
• Is it the privileged class who depend on police violence to restrain the non-privileged class of persons?
• Is it storekeepers who use favors and gifts to bribe police to protect their shops?
• Is it parents who hope their child can get status and upward mobility with a job as police officer, and therefore tolerate “bad police practices” regardless of the misdeeds of the police?
• Is it people who thrive of “authority” and become police officers so they — without earning respect—can nevertheless “demand” respect, and have the right to punish anyone who “disrespects” them using “qualified immunity,” as permission.
Dark money makes a dark world. We live in a country that worships money and those who possess it, by whatever means. I believe reversing Citizens United would go a long way in letting in some light. I value the work of Sheldon Whitehouse and others for that reason. Corruption is a fixable problem, but I agree about the frog in the pot. We must admit where we actually are, here and now, so that we can address it. We have many problems, but there are a few that are core, and this is one of them. Just imagine, if dark money were removed, how different our Congress would look; how many vile people would never have been elected. It matters.
I want to add both my congratulations and deep condolences, first for the birth of your new granddaughter and then sadly for the loss of a dear friend. While none of us are immortal, our Jewish tradition teaches us that our lost loved ones live on in the memories we hold dear and the acts of goodness and loving kindness they performed while they were in our lives.
May your granddaughter grow up strong and healthy and learn of and be inspired by her grandparents who daily bring hope and encouragement to millions living through these “very interesting times”. Thank you for sharing your intelligence and clear thinking with all of us.
What chills me to the bone is the cops who killed Tyre Nichols seemed to following a script and didn't deviate from it one iota. "Get out of the car" as they were dragging him out. "Get on the ground" when he was already on the ground. "Put your hands behind your back" when they were holding his arms. "Show your hands" when they were holding him such that he couldn't. When Tyre says "What did I do?" they had no response because it wasn't in their script. Most chillingly was their scripted response about him "grabbing the gun" when he clearly didn't....just following a script no matter the actual action. Tyre's humanity didn't fit their only well-rehearsed scenario.
Yet aren't law enforcement officers required to tell a person they've stopped the reason they were stopped or are being arrested? It's clear that Tyre Nichols, at no point, was told why in spite of his questions about why.
This is a link to Tyre Nichols' photos. They are beautiful in every way. They cruelty and violence that ended his life should not define him, these should. All the more is humanity's loss when we remain silent at the loss of such a beautiful soul. https://thiscaliforniakid2.wixsite.com/tnicholsphotography/portraits
There is a psychosis that is truly American.
I often wonder if there are any studies being done about this. Those in other countries see it in the mass murders here. They see it in the shocking win of Trump in 2016, and have been horrified that Americans let these things happen. They still have a love affair -or fascination - with the fables that are America via films and the possibility of a better life if moving there.
The other evening some of us in Democrats Abroad Spain met via Zoom to discuss the ´state of affairs´. I had thought that we were going to be sharing ideas for what we can do, but it was really a discussion of hopelessness. I encouraged them to join this group, Heather's group, and, as an afterthought for the people in charge to share Chop Wood Carry Water.
For decades, all of us thought we were living in an amazing country. If your white, you´re safe. If you're middle class, you´re ¨rich¨. Somewhere in the 70's, without being aware, we became the frogs in an enormous pot of water. With Reagan, the stove was turned to low. It simmered as changes were being made outside of the pot where we were swimming in glorious ignorance because we felt smug and safe. Rules and laws like the Fairness Doctrine were changed or ended. Corporations were given the status of ¨people¨. We kept swimming, although the water was getting warmer.
In 1991 Rodney King was beaten. The cops were acquitted and a riot ensued. TMZ has a message from Rodney Kings daughter to the family of Tyre Nichols. Sandy Hook happened in 2012 and there was not a peep from anyone going about their daily lives. In 2015 a narcissist made fun of someone with a disability and became president of the United States - not because of the popular vote but because of the deeply flawed Electoral College. He created a crack in the carefully constructed GOP roadmap to power allowing vermin, snakes, and cons to slither in on his coat tails.
If we take the time to look back, we can see the journey to this moment. Are we going to jump from the pot and become who we think that we have been and are, or are we going to become dinner for the minority? Each American needs to own his/her responsibility in all that got us here and be brave enough to fight for every single American - black, brown, yellow, red, white, woman, man, child, LBGTQ+, Muslim, Jew, Christian, Buddhist, + +++++
If not....
Citizens United decision has become worse than imagined. Dark money controls the votes of the politicians who could solve the mass destruction by automatic weapons. Dark money continues to support the amoral criminal trump! Dark money controls the supreme stench court! Dark money continues to exert control over more and more state legislatures!
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We can fix this. All we need is the will and the leadership. John Lewis and Martin Luther King showed us the way. We need a new leader and a willing electorate.
Yes, as jaded and cynical as I am, I know we *can* 'fix this'. The real question is will we? If that is to become a reality, we do, indeed, need not just a new leader, but a number of them. And they will need to possess the best of true leadership skills. For the electorate will only become 'willing' if it is led to the point of being so. It won't become so by being bullied, morally harangued, or deluged with platitudes and attention-grabbing but essentially empty rhetoric.
The divide in our country won't be bridged by such, nor by good intentions. It will be bridged in the end by people who will possess the ability to speak as Americans to all Americans and be perceived first and foremost by the majority of them as such when they do so, not as Democrats or Republicans or partisans of any stripe. They may indeed be one of those things, but they will be the type of people themselves who self-identify as Americans first, foremost and always, because in the end that is truly who they are.
I have no doubt these people are out there. My doubts stem from the question of whether or not we ourselves will be able to put our own identities as Americans first, lessen our gaze through a partisan lens and recognize them if and when we're presented with an opportunity to do so.
I like imagining such great leaders, but when this has ever happened in America in the past? Obama and Carter come to mind, but both left the country more divided. Maybe Eisenhower?
I actually don’t believe the problem is the lack of very competent leaders with integrity. A few always are out there, and some of them are even inspirational and dedicated. Instead, I think the populace of America (& other nations) has changed dramatically over recent decades. Being able to lead us with the trust and respect of the “large majority” has become a sad and quaint memory, I’m afraid.
Over 50 - 60 years, we’ve been through enormous changes in our social values.
That would have been hard enough to any nation with a large number of conservatives to digest. But especially in such an energetic and individualistic country as the U.S., with a very long history of ruthless oppression of so many minorities.
But we’ve ALSO, for 30+ yrs., been trying to adapt to tech changes coming at light speed :
- 24/7 cable “news”
- the internet
- pocket computers/video cameras/TVs
- social media
- computer viruses and hackers
- online education and porn
- the dark web
-etc., etc.
And now comes AI!!!
I believe that this combination of social and technological changes has totally overwhelmed Americans. To reduce our stress, we began grasping for easy answers and righteous indignation. We became setups for propaganda promoters that gave us the sense of being members of the team fighting against Evil.
Ultimately, many of us let ourselves become deeply self-propagandized. Me included!
All the while, the people with obscene amounts of money and desire for power/fame have been doing what they always do, manipulating the system and events to their advantage. In simpler and calmer times, they would have been challenged by a vigorous and independent media that demanded accountability. Some of our media try today, but there’s just FAR too many cross-currents for any story thread to stick with us for long.
My conclusions:
We won’t get out of this mess till we
a) recognize our overwhelmed situation
b) choose to stop our self-propagandizing
c) dramatically control social media
d) create a new economic approach that deals much better with the huge income inequalities that drive deep US grievances, mainly through truly fair wages.
But first, Trumpism must die and a responsible conservative party with a moral compass must be reborn.
I think all you've said here is true, particularly that last.
We have, in fact, had great and effective leaders in government and elsewhere, though none lately. Washington, Lincoln, FDR, Eisenhower as President to some extent; JFK, in spite of his faults, showed great leadership during the Cuban Missile Crisis and in confronting George Wallace at the schoolhouse door. His solutions to those problems were imperfect, as most solutions are, but they effectively protected the country in the first instance and continued to move it in the right direction in the second. And of course, there's MLK.
Carter failed not only as a great leader but even as a good one for a number of reasons. Being a good, well-intentioned man isn't the same as being a good or great leader. Ditto Obama. Ditto Biden, though I'll not say he isn't at least a pretty good leader, all things considered.
The mistake we often make is in putting too much emphasis on the leadership of one individual. In the case of some I listed, the effect of their individual leadership is undeniable. But, in a nod to your assessment of the role 'tech' has played in our politics and society for these past decades, those were indeed simpler times.
If we're looking for one 'leader' who will by dint of their 'great' individual leadership get us out of this mess, we're not going to find them. It will take a number of them in different areas of our society, politics and government. And as I noted, it will be up to us to recognize them when the opportunity presents itself, and then *allow* them to lead. Which we won't do until we start evaluating ideas and solutions on their merits, not on who or where they came from. And to do this, we do indeed have to admit we have a problem. Which is basically that we're human and prone to brainwashing ourselves with self-generated propaganda.
In the end, if we don't get out of this mess, which won't happen anytime soon, the fault will not lay in our stars, but in ourselves. For not recognizing them.
I agree that there will not be one leader. I think change will have to come from the bottom up, and new leaders will emerge. I'm reading Timothy Snyder's "On Tyranny" - there's a beautiful graphic edition now - and it's full of wisdom. One chapter is titled "Investigate." Snyder says, "Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on the internet is there to harm you. Learn about sites that investigate propaganda campaigns (some of which come from abroad). Take responsibility for what you communicate with others.' If all of us do a little bit of this, I think we can neutralize misinformation and positive change will happen.
Very good advice, all of that.
Yes, Stephen, the will and the leadership, and one more Resource: love.
Dr. King: "Hatred cannot drive out hatred; only love can do that."
Mahatma Gandhi: "Whenever you are confronted with an opponent, conquer him with love.
Jesus: (Matt 5) "‘You have heard that it was said, “You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.” But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be children of your Father in heaven; for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous."
This is not about mushy (though lovely) romantic love. It's about the power, the energy, the Source of non-physical resources that are available within and around each of us. When we call upon this Source to guide us to the actions we need to take to "fix this," we have a much better chance of success.
And I would add to that, one thing that helps me to "love my enemy," is to increase my understanding of how people get to be "the enemy" in the first place, how people get to choose hatred over love. And for that I turn to Christian Christian Picciolini, a former white supremacist /violent extremist, who has dedicated himself to helping people overcome their hate. "I wasn't born into hate," he says, in this powerful TED talk about his journey. It's well worth your time to read the article and listen to the talk. Blessings,
https://ideas.ted.com/what-leads-a-person-to-white-supremacy-here-is-one-mans-story/
I saw a television program about Christian Picciolini several years ago. Among his other healing work, he brought one of the marchers from Charlottesville to meet Heather Heyer's mother. It was amazing to see that confused young man start to shift his attitudes after talking to Mr. Picciolini. It was even more surprising to watch the reconciliation between that young man and Heather's mother.
At that point, I wished Mr. Picciolini could train a whole "army" of people to help white supremacists who were swept into the movement because of their lack of support in life and need to "belong" somewhere. It's difficult work and it takes time, but what Christian Picciolini did was really inspiring.
Thank you CC. I didn't know about this program. I"m going to look on youtube. I think Christian's skilled and loving experiences show how this can work. I love your idea of an "army" of people to help. I wonder what Christian would say to that. I"m going to ask him on twitter.
He might need some funding if he were able to find more people who could help do his work. You just jogged my memory. I think I remember that he got some funding from the government, but that went away when the former president arrived in D.C. Yes, here's an old story about just that subject. The information below is just the first few paragraphs of the story.
Liz Goodwin·Senior National Affairs Reporter
August 15, 2017
"Christian Picciolini, founder of Life After Hate. (Photo: Teresa Crawford/AP)
WASHINGTON — Christian Picciolini, a former neo-Nazi leader who now helps deradicalize white supremacists, was looking forward to expanding his efforts with funding from the federal government, authorized in January.
But in June, Picciolini learned the Trump administration had rescinded the $400,000 grant for his Chicago-based group, called Life After Hate, after then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly reviewed the list of organizations receiving money under a program to counter violent extremism in the United States. Kelly said the review was to ensure “taxpayer dollars go to programs with the highest likelihood of success, that support the men and women on the front lines of this fight, and that can be self-sustaining into the future.” Kelly rescinded funding for 12 groups and added seven others.
Picciolini, however, wonders whether his group’s focus on white supremacism, rather than extreme radical Islam, may be behind the decision, though he stresses he doesn’t know — he never heard back from the department about why Life After Hate was excluded."
https://news.yahoo.com/u-s-cuts-grant-group-seeks-de-radicalize-neo-nazis-170657211.html
Try this link. https://www.christianpicciolini.com/BreakingHate
I only saw one of his specials on TV, but this link shows three of them.
Thanks, Chaplain Terry. Wish I was there to give you a physical hug this week…💙
Awww. thank you Kathy. By the miracle of the non-physical, I feel a hug from you and I thank you.
What a well done timeline of this American journey, to which we add the complicating factor of Russian subversion, and look for the ways we survived in order to build our future.
Yes. So much evidence regarding Russia and the Americans who have/are helping with misinformation. I truly believe that we will not just survive, but truly become a future for all.
Gailee, Admittedly, I never will submit to hopelessness and, frankly, repeatedly rekindle resolve from my firm belief that it is impossible to foretell precisely when any of our endeavors will reach critical mass, suddenly creating change. Still, I very much would value knowing what drives your belief that we “truly [will] become a future for all.” Thanks in advance for any insights you might share.
Yes, it is becoming more and more difficult to have faith that the future will be brighter when every day there are more atrocities in the news despite so many working so hard for the common good. Something cruel and evil is taking over the minds and souls of too many of our people. We can't reach them by logic or by facts. How can we combat the propaganda that makes them willfully ignorant and hateful?
Teach them while they're young: empathy, kindness, consideration, fairness. Which would be more likely to be integrated into public education than private.
Right, and we see where public education is heading. :-(
Mim, I read on this site not long ago that we start by becoming “Truth Warriors” Beyond that, as I’ve posted in the past, I carry a slip of paper on my person at all time from SCOTUS Emeritus Justice Louis Brandeis, who once wrote “Most of the things worth doing in the world had been declared impossible before they were done.”
As a final point, I would note that both Substack hosts and subscriber voices let us glimpse what is truly worth seeking, worth having, and worth doing.
I know, Barbara Jo, but we who seek all those things cannot gain traction with those who despise us who work for the common good, and we just can't seem to penetrate their bubble enough to show them that light and love are better than cruelty, evil and disinformation. I keep trying. We all must keep trying. But it's difficult to hold onto a hope for the future, near or distant, when you're 80 years old, as I just turned, and all the good we accomplished in the '60s is being wrested away. But I will keep trying. We all must keep trying.
Good morning Barbara Jo,
I believe because there are so many working towards change - which is why the Dark Side is frantic. The news and often sub-stacks share the darkness that seems to be engulfing us now because it is flashy and sells and adds to the chaos.
However, there are so many working and fighting for democracy and the freedoms of all. It is messy. It is painful. It is dangerous. Just like America's War for Independence, many sit on the sidelines and moan without doing one of the many things available to them - like the opportunities offered via Chop Wood Carry Water. Look at all President Biden has been able to accomplish with the Dark Side doing everything it can to keep him from his goals of a better country for all the people. What if each of us did just one thing that applauds him in public for each of his accomplishments?
There may be even darker days, months, years ahead - as there were in the country where I now live which is so very proud of it's fledgling democracy and transparency.
I believe that we need these dark times to challenge everyone who gives the rights of all lip service only to stand up, speak out, demand, expect nothing less. Don't buy products from the corporations that support the Dark Side. Speak out on social media against the liars and cheaters. Roar to the DOJ that you expect nothing less than prison for all of those who tried and are trying to destroy our democracy and rights.
It is up to every single one of us to be present and active because if ever single one of is not, it may take many years and a lot of pain before America can have the right for the Statue of Liberty to lift the lamp, with honesty, integrity, and truth, on its shore.
I believe that Dan Rather's message describes much more powerfully than I. This is it.
https://steady.substack.com/p/tragedy-in-memphis?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
Gailee, I just commented about how discouraged I am, but your eloquent post is reminding me that there are enough of "us" to ensure, by our continuing actions, a brighter future than the present darkness.
Oh Mim! You have lifted my heart. We are light. Remember that. We are all individual beams of light, and together we can make a torch. ⭐
Hi Gailee, I so very deeply appreciated your thoughtful and authentic reply. I would start by noting, as you stated in your original comment, that for the early part of my life I, too, was overtaken by gratitude to have been born in the United States. However, like most, as I became increasingly educated, I also became increasingly critical and increasingly aware that any meaningful transformation would entail a reckoning the likes of which I’ve never experienced except for within relatively small groups.
Still, even as most generations, at times, have been maligned as apathetic and uncaring, each also has been underscored by movements, wherein, at times, even a single seemingly insignificant effort produced powerful results.
I suppose because we rarely know how the impact of our actions might ripple out or who may be touched, that’s reason enough why, although the fruits of our labors can’t always be seen, they matter immensely.
On a more personal level. I would note I take heart simply from responding to your gorgeously hopeful statement.
Galilee, I hated just about every word you wrote....thank you for writing! I spend a lot of time trying to “jump out of the pot”
Thank you, Gailee, for that recounting. You are spot on.
If I remember correctly you live in San Sebastián? If you have a moment can you email me privately? I’m seeking into about moving to Spain. Thank you!!
Sharonleebenton@gmail.com
Good morning Sharon,
I will.❤️
I believe Christians have an elevated responsibility in these days when so many attitudes are not being challenged and in fact are sometimes supported or at least tolerated by our “Christian nation.” I am a United Methodist and benefit from the writings of Rev. Benjamin Cramer, website below.
Ben posted last night, “When people are literally dying from mass shootings and police brutality in our country, but our culture just hears the loudest voices in Christianity protesting drag queens and books, we can’t expect people to believe our religion has anything to do with life conquering death.”
https://benjamin-cremer.ck.page/
I understand the horror of readers of the image of Black cops beating an innocent Black man. I understand how seemingly impossible it is to comprehend their actions. I've been a psychotherapist for over fifty years and both my experience and my training afford me a way to understand and empathize with the Black officers. I offer it to you all here. My field has a name for this horror: it is called "identification with the aggressor." Think of the child of an abusive father, beaten and scorned by his father, who grows up to be an abusive man himself. You wonder, how could this happen? Wouldn't that child grow up to be gentle and kind, to have the kind of love towards his father he wished he could have had? Sometimes that does happen. But just as often, the child, desperate to cope in a violent home, becomes violent himself, sees violence as the solution, as the source of power and control. Indeed, sometimes the child idealizes the violence and sees gentleness and kindness as weak and unmanly.
Imagine if that child instead chose to be gentle and kind? How long would he survive in that system?
Those five Black policemen were all raised in a violent system, and like the child, have learned to cope by identifying with the violence and defying, denying, despising the gentle side of themselves.
Of course it is terrible that these five Black policemen committed this terrible murder. But we need only to look at four hundred years of slavery and violence against their their own fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers to understand that these men, to survive, had "identified with the aggressor."
We lived in South Africa during Apartheid and we often saw examples of Black Policemen being the harshest on their own. Our puzzlement and conclusions on this apparent paradox was similar to your. That being said..and in the midst of trying to view that horrifying video...I still wonder why justice of these acts by police officers is not in better balance
Police from different tribe than those they beat! Not unlike the animosity between the two major groups of Islam, Sinni and Shiite!
Add to this the powerful, often unconscious, self-loathing born of four hundred years of wide-spread racism, the shadow side of the collective psyche. I think it was no accident that a Black UVA student killed Black fellow students on a bus right after watching a play based on the horrifying treatment of Emmett Till.
Bad parenting is the gift that keeps giving, generation after generation, whether physical abuse, sexual abuse, or simply a lack of skills for instilling self-respect in children. It’s less a symptom of race as of poverty and lack of educational resources. I have no solution, except a concerted effort to teach parenting skills throughout the educational system, and perhaps a mandatory 1-2 year period of national service for every 18 year old.
Yes plus. Parenting, raising children has been massively disrupted by television and screens. The main reason I want universal child care is to get children away from screens and with professionals who provide nurturing and space to grow. They ca also intervene when children are in trouble. We also need a good intervention system. Preschoolers in trouble can become mad ,sad and dangerous teens.
To me it seemed an act of such self-loathing, after, as you say, four hundred years of slavery and violence because of the color of their skin. How do we change this and start a different course?
I haven’t watched the videos. I don’t want to see someone being murdered.
Absolutely yes. I hadn't read your post when I wrote mine!
I really appreciate your advice on talking and listening to other's concerns and above all showing respect 🙏 for their feelings
That's the only answer for America 🇺🇸 to rise above our calamities and become better people from sharing it with each other just like Bobby Kennedy said to the people in Indianapolis the night that Martin Luther King was shot. He risked his own safety to calm down a crowd trying to turn ugly. Perhaps somebody like Obama can promote 🤔 peacefulness. America 🇺🇸 has too much dysfunction still from J6
Hope the DOJ proceedings are still fruitful for that and civil rights violations like this crime!!!
Government only works properly if all the people hold it 🤔 accountable
Thank you, Robert. Especially your last paragraph.
The Island by Langston Hughes
Wave of sorrow,
Do not drown me now: I see the island
Still ahead somehow.
I see the island
And its sands are fair: Wave of sorrow,
Take me there.
I can't talk about that Memphis video. "If my thought dreams could be seen, they would put my head in a guillotine."
That quote surely applies lately. Thanks to Dylan we have words for our fear…. Sadly
A nation is a being, and ours is very sick. We are not healthy. We show signs everywhere that we are suffering. We are being killed by sick, unhappy people who take out their discontent on people less powerful than they. We are creating the kinds of inhuman organisms you find in Stephen King's novels that terrorize the most innocent among us. What happened to that young man who was trying to get home was purely evil. That's why we can't stop it.
My take on this latest incidence of police violence: it is evidence of the increasing authoritarianism of our social and political culture. Police Departments appear to be set up in an authoritarian model, which is what needs to change. Our guardrails against authoritarianism have traditionally been the First Amendment, (freedom of press, right to speak and protest), and the Courts, (civil and criminal recourse), and legislative actions and oversight.
It is pretty obvious that extreme right-wing leaders like Trump, DeSantis, others leading or legislating in so many states, in Congress, are doing their best to remove those guardrails. Trump did it systematically for four years. Biden is doing his best to restore the guardrails.
The question we have, is how to get Americans to understand that they so often vote against democracy by voting for these people. That is our dilemma.
When those then-police officers encountered Tyre Nichols, they saw him only as he was to them at the moment. They did not see or care to see him as a father, a son, an excellent photographer (see the link that HCR has kindly posted on her page today), a friend. We can, and should condemn those men for what they did, but let’s also admit that every day we do the same. The stupid driver who can’t figure out where they’re going is just stupid or lazy, nothing more. The criminal in the dock is a robber, and that’s all. Political opponents are reactionaries or racists or fascists, not loving children or parents. Perhaps trying not to feel and think that way is a tiny step toward human progress.
In silent protest of FB welcoming Trump, I have deleted my FB account. Too many GOP members have decided money is their god; a tragic state of affairs prompting me to be more politically active. Grrr!
I'm going to stay with Facebook because I have many real and virtual friends and others there who share important or interesting posts. There are also natural history groups whose posts and comments are valuable to me. I do not click on "Sponsored" posts (which are ads), and I have AdBlockPlus to avoid seeing ads, so I am not one Facebook makes money off of. I shall block Trump when he is reinstated there.
Like you, I won't click on "Sponsored" posts even when it's by an organization that I otherwise support or agree with.
Right. It might remind me to donate to them for the first time or again, but I go directly to the organization's website to donate.
Racism affects us all. I come back to this story often when thinking about racism…
Krista Tippett interviews Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa:
“I think… that we have very gravely underestimated the damage that apartheid inflicted on all of us. You know, the damage to our psyches, the damage that has made — I mean, it shocked me. I went to Nigeria when I was working for the World Council of Churches, and I was due to fly to Jos. And so I go to Lagos airport and I get onto the plane and the two pilots in the cockpit are both black. And whee, I just grew inches. You know, it was fantastic because we had been told that blacks can’t do this.
…And we have a smooth takeoff and then we hit the mother and father of turbulence. I mean, it was quite awful, scary. Do you know, I can’t believe it but the first thought that came to my mind was, “Hey, there’s no white men in that cockpit. Are those blacks going to be able to make it?”
And of course, they obviously made it — here I am. But the thing is, I had not known that I was damaged to the extent of thinking that somehow actually what those white people who had kept drumming into us in South Africa about our being inferior, about our being incapable, it had lodged some way in me.”
Donna, thank you for this - a difficult subject to think about, let alone speak, but we need to keep telling the stories, and especially the stories of those non-white role models who demonstrate why that false narrative is wrong...thank goodness we have/had MLK, Jr., Obama, Rosa Parks, Shirley Chisholm, Jesse Owens, Jackie Robinson, Katherine Johnson, Thurgood Marshall, Bayard Rustin, Muhammad Ali, Frederick Douglas, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Taj Mahal....the list is long and distinguished, and growing.
I give you the analogy of police culture and mushrooms.
The mushroom is a fungus with a vast underground root system (the “mycelium”) that quietly exists out of sight without the need for sunlight, and periodically, when the time, the proper temperature, and moisture coincide, the mycelium produces the above-ground fruiting body that we commonly call “toadstools,” or “mushrooms.” We can harvest these fruits, but the below-ground plant that we don’t see, continues.
Police culture exists largely out of the view of the public, and only periodically, when the conditions are wrong and the cameras are running, does the public see the “fruits” of such culture. We are outraged by these periodic “beatings” and “killings,” but the police culture continues.
When you perceive any system to be dysfunctional, I invite you to change your perspective: You will discover that there are people who may be benefitting in big or small ways from the dysfunctionality. They tolerate and perpetuate the status quo, and oppose change.
Let’s think about all those who might possibly benefit from police department dysfunctionality.
• Is it white people who tolerate police violence against black and brown people if it assures the safety of white people?
• Is it white supremacists who want minorities “kept in their place.”
• Is it the politician who needs the police to look the other way when the politician breaks the law? Speeding ticket, domestic abuse, drug use, driving while drunk?
• Is it politicians who ask police to look the other way on behalf of a donor? After all, we believe we live in meritocracy, but to get ahead, we still rely on “who do you know.”
• Is it the police union presidents who need union members’ votes to keep their status and enhanced income.
• Is it lawyers who are on retainer to defend the police department?
• Is it the privileged class who depend on police violence to restrain the non-privileged class of persons?
• Is it storekeepers who use favors and gifts to bribe police to protect their shops?
• Is it parents who hope their child can get status and upward mobility with a job as police officer, and therefore tolerate “bad police practices” regardless of the misdeeds of the police?
• Is it people who thrive of “authority” and become police officers so they — without earning respect—can nevertheless “demand” respect, and have the right to punish anyone who “disrespects” them using “qualified immunity,” as permission.
• Add your own.
Good analogy, and thought-provoking list.
Dark money makes a dark world. We live in a country that worships money and those who possess it, by whatever means. I believe reversing Citizens United would go a long way in letting in some light. I value the work of Sheldon Whitehouse and others for that reason. Corruption is a fixable problem, but I agree about the frog in the pot. We must admit where we actually are, here and now, so that we can address it. We have many problems, but there are a few that are core, and this is one of them. Just imagine, if dark money were removed, how different our Congress would look; how many vile people would never have been elected. It matters.
Dear Rob,
I want to add both my congratulations and deep condolences, first for the birth of your new granddaughter and then sadly for the loss of a dear friend. While none of us are immortal, our Jewish tradition teaches us that our lost loved ones live on in the memories we hold dear and the acts of goodness and loving kindness they performed while they were in our lives.
May your granddaughter grow up strong and healthy and learn of and be inspired by her grandparents who daily bring hope and encouragement to millions living through these “very interesting times”. Thank you for sharing your intelligence and clear thinking with all of us.
Thank you for your kind words and good wishes.
What chills me to the bone is the cops who killed Tyre Nichols seemed to following a script and didn't deviate from it one iota. "Get out of the car" as they were dragging him out. "Get on the ground" when he was already on the ground. "Put your hands behind your back" when they were holding his arms. "Show your hands" when they were holding him such that he couldn't. When Tyre says "What did I do?" they had no response because it wasn't in their script. Most chillingly was their scripted response about him "grabbing the gun" when he clearly didn't....just following a script no matter the actual action. Tyre's humanity didn't fit their only well-rehearsed scenario.
Yet aren't law enforcement officers required to tell a person they've stopped the reason they were stopped or are being arrested? It's clear that Tyre Nichols, at no point, was told why in spite of his questions about why.
This is a link to Tyre Nichols' photos. They are beautiful in every way. They cruelty and violence that ended his life should not define him, these should. All the more is humanity's loss when we remain silent at the loss of such a beautiful soul. https://thiscaliforniakid2.wixsite.com/tnicholsphotography/portraits