Because we are night owls here, out of sync with the rest of the world, and because we don't watch TV news, your Head Trucker often does not see the big stories until a day or two after the rest of you.
Overnight, I had a chance to get caught up on the Jacob Blake shooting in Kenosha, Wisconsin. And I am furious. Not all the details of what happened are yet available, it seems, but the HORRIFIC video shot by a bystander clearly shows Blake walking away from several policemen following him with drawn guns.
By the time he reaches the door of his SUV, one officer is close enough to grab his shirt. As Blake continues to open the door and tries to get into the vehicle, the officer starts shooting him in the back - seven or more shots can be heard.
Why shoot a man in the back who apparently was not armed and not threatening the officers? Walking away from police who were yelling at him to stop was a totally stupid thing to do, granted. But from what I can see on the video, there is NO EXCUSE for what the cop did. He could have stopped him several other ways besides shooting him.
And it seems Blake's three young children were in the SUV at the time, watching all this. HORRIBLE.
Blake is in hospital fighting for his life. And rioters are tearing up the city of Kenosha.
Has no one told the police in Kenosha - and all through the rest of the USA - to fucking STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE?
Three months after George Floyd was slowly, agonizingly murdered on a pavement in Minneapolis, and this shit is STILL HAPPENING?
DOES NO ONE HAVE ANY CONTROL OVER THE COPS ANYMORE?
IS THIS AMERICA OR AMERIKKKA? IS THIS A POLICE STATE? Does anybody CARE??
Sorry to sound so extreme, guys, but there's no reason for this shit to still be happening. Every cop in the nation should have gotten the word by now. WHO IS IN CHARGE OF THE COPS ON THE STREET, AND WHAT THE HELL ARE THEY DOING ABOUT IT???
I don't condone or excuse all the rioting and violence at all. But obviously, it's not going to stop as long as the cops keep MURDERING people at will, with no punishment and no control. Of course the country is going to fall apart if it doesn't STOP RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
And if the cops are a law unto themselves, then NOBODY IS SAFE. They can kill anybody they please, anytime, anywhere. You or me or Grandma or Uncle John. Anyone.
Black lives matter. Justice matters. Simple human decency matters. I don't know what else to say.
I know I don't want to hear pretty words of sympathy and sorrow from any goddamn politicians high or low, left or right. I want somebody to take real action, take control of the cops, and STOP THE MADNESS NOW! STOP KILLING BLACK PEOPLE!! JUST STOP STOP STOP IT!!!
God bless Jacob Blake and his family. God help us all.
P. S. , 8/26/20 -- I just saw an opinion piece by a journalist in Wisconsin saying, "I don't believe any police academy trains them to murder someone like that." Oh, but they do. That's the problem.
See my June 11 post, "Killer Cops - The Why and the How," for a couple of eye-opening video reports on this very subject.
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10 comments:
Well said Russ. And, yes, God help us all.
Amen.
Wait until you hear/read about the 17 year old "militia" member in Kenosha, WI who shot 3 black men, killing two. And the police who encouraged his presence on the streets that night. This is what the president and the GOP are permitting and enabling. A win for Biden is not going to change what America has become, at least not overnight. I'm a pessimist and I think we, like the ice flows in Greenland, have reached a critical point of no return. And I don't believe the optimists who say Biden is a sure thing...it is not a done deal. This dictator has more support than meets the eye. Pence is speaking as I type...he is a scary man. God help us all.
I agree with all you said - and I also thought of the Greenland parallel today (great minds think alike, huh?). No, Biden is not a shoo-in by any means; if he does win, the Dicktator will deny and challenge it a hundred different ways; and even if a Biden victory is definitely certified by Congress, who knows but Shithead will do his damndest to burn the house down as he is being shoved out the door.
And then there's his gang of thugs still hovering around somewhere. And beyond them, the fascist third of the population (maybe more) who will want revenge for a "stolen" election, and on and on and on.
Parlous times. Dark, degraded, filthy, hateful politics. The America you and I knew turned inside out and upside down. Of course we have to vote right and do right and keep the faith, regardless.
But it doesn't hurt to pray.
P.S. - Even if the Dems win this election, and right the ship of state, I say now that some things have got to change. The Internet, for one thing, has got to be either shut down or drastically reconfigured. You see how easily it can be used at present to summon armed thugs (the 17 year old in Kenosha) and spread every kind of blatant lie to every dumbshit mind (can you say Comet Pizza), completely undermining all truth and all decency. It was a nice idea, but it is destroying Western society. In a hurry.
Same goes for those goddamn drones - cf the POS mosque killer in New Zealand, and how he planned it all by aerial surveillance.
But even more than technology and politics, people have to change for the better and the *gooder*. How to get that result, I don't know. But things can't go on like this.
Good evening Russ from Paul in Amsterdam. I have been following your blog for a few years now and we are on the same train of thought about life. But I feel now that I have to make a comment.
What the hell is going on in America. I have been to the USA many times and have great friends there. But America today is not the America I know and love. The Racism and extremism leaves me and the rest of the world in shock.
If that nutcase of a president gets elected again the World will lose all respect for the USA. I hope that all the normal people will vote and America will become the land of LOVE and FREEDOM for ALL its citizens.
We in Ireland lived under Suppression for many years but now we live as good and friendly neighbors.
All the best and greetings from an Queer Irishman in Amsterdam.
Howdy Paul, good to hear from you.
It's not the America I know and love, either. You are right to be shocked and afraid. We are terrified here of the obvious dictatorship already underway. The rise of extremism and violent racism has taken all decent people here by surprise. Our politics have been getting more and more polarized since the Reagan era, or maybe I should say the Nixon/Vietnam era. The last ten or twenty years it really accelerated. Now it is like two different worlds, and getting further apart all the time.
But to all you good friends in Europe - whom my own father, along with many others, helped to liberate from that other dictatorship 75 years ago - please remember that the crazies and the nasties/Nazis you see on TV are NOT all of us: 62 million voted for Trump in the last election, but 65 million voted *against* him. It is only because of the peculiarity of our electoral system (voting by states, not by total population) that he won the presidency.
Ireland is very far away from here, but I remember hearing for many, many years of the endless violence and fighting there, and it seemed like a hopeless situation to me. But the fact that the people of your island were able finally to sort things out and live in peace once more shows that it can be done, if good people try.
That's what I'm hoping and praying for here in America. And an overwhelming, unquestionable victory for the Democrats - the party of sanity - in November. So send us good vibes, and don't give up on America yet. There are still plenty of good guys in white hats over here, we just have to run the desperadoes out of town first and then get back to business.
Take care.
I too am disheartened about how the United States standing in the world has dropped since the orange one has been president. We have to hope and pray that when Biden wins, he wins big, so there is no question about voter fraud. The whole thing is just so sad.
Yes, a big overwhelming win that cannot be questioned is what we need.
I sense a “never before in my lifetime” swell of passion of millions, to remove this guy from office. This passion will not be dulled by a pandemic, a push by radical protesters near voting lines or by a post office run by a political hack. We will overcome this nightmare with a landslide victory that will not be successfully challenged or put down, even if it means a short lived civil war before the president is sworn in. I sense this: This nightmare is coming to a close.
I don't get out much these days, and I can't bear to watch the daily news, so I have no sense of the groundswell you mention. But I do hope you are right about an unquestionable landslide victory.
But no war! No killing, no violence. Only peace. Civil conflict would cause untold suffering to millions of innocent people, needlessly, stupidly. It would not be short, and it would not solve anything.
Instead I hope the common sense of most shall hold a fretful realm in awe.
Let us pray.
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