Hatred in America

The Civil War is not starting up again. There are too many good people there who understand what it was about and why the nation must move on. The spirit of hatred is the Pandora’s box that has, at last, been opened. The festering boil of discontent that has always been a part of America has finally cracked open and the poison of a part of its populace has risen to be seen by our society for all its ugliness, spite, and malevolence.

Ku Klux Klan, Nazism, White Supremacists, militia of all types and from many states, haters of Blacks, haters of people who are not exactly as they are, Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and everyone who does not hate someone, must go, must be stomped on. Freedom of speech is only for those who hate. The problem is…that the hatred begins at the very top of America’s leadership. Donald Trump has now become America’s Hater-In-Chief. We saw it on the campaign trail. Then, it was his hatred of brown people, characterizing Mexicans as rapists, drug dealers, and other salacious names. His comments about Islamist terrorists crossing the border from Mexico demonstrated his lack of compassion for immigrants attempting to flee their own country to escape persecution. He followed that up with his attack on Muslim Gold Star parents. Even before Trump became a candidate, he was sued twice by the Justice Department for racial discrimination, the law suit alleging, “…that the company quoted different rental terms and conditions to black rental candidates than it did with white candidates, and that the company lied to black applicants about apartments not being available.” Although Trump called the allegations ridiculous, his company later, “Settled the original lawsuit two years later and promised not to discriminate against black people, Puerto Ricans or other minorities. Trump also agreed to send weekly vacancy lists for his 15,000 apartments to the New York Urban League, a civil rights group, and to allow the NYUL to present qualified applicants for vacancies in certain Trump properties.” It is this type of prejudice and racial hatred that has allowed the boil to split and its toxin release on those who welcome it.

It appears to me that America was racist and filled with hate long before it became “America.” After all, wouldn’t you call the Pilgrims white supremacists for their behavior toward the Native Americans. Chinese who came to this country in the 1700’s and 1800’s were treated horribly by other immigrant groups, all of which were white. Yet, even white immigrants were often greeted by those already established in the country as outsiders. “No Irish Need Apply” read the signs in Boston. For a long period, Irish and blacks were considered as the same class. With each new immigrant group that escaped their own country to what the early Chinese called “the Gold Mountain,” they were greeted with distrust and outright hatred. “They’ve come to steal our jobs,” was one cry that echoed across our land, and it’s true today. White farm workers won’t accept the pay that farmers are willing to give to harvest their crops so the farmers turn to those who will…and the white farm workers scream, “They’re stealing our jobs.” People like Dylan Roof see blacks becoming prosperous at their expense, and the answer is to kill nine black church-goers. Timothy McVeigh and his cohorts see a United States government they feel is infringing on their rights – whatever that means to them – and so they bomb the Alfred P. Murrah federal building that also housed a day-care center, killing 168 people and injuring another 680.

Hatred exists because the rest of us allow it to exist. And I’m just as guilty as everyone else. We tend not to speak out when someone else is attacked with words or worse. We’re fearful that we might become the next victim. We don’t want to get involved, and because of that, people like David Duke, the Ku Klux Klan, the White Nationalist Socialist Association, and 916 other hate groups are openly operating in America today.

Edmund Burke wrote, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” The Senator from Alabama, now the Attorney General of the United States, claims that he and his colleagues are going after criminal illegals and deporting them. While they aren’t doing it as quickly as those in the last year of the last administration, I’m willing to cut them a little slack while the refine their methods. Perhaps they should set up a separate division, a hate crimes division, that can identify and bring to trial those people espousing hatred, bigotry, and racism…black, white, Asian, and Latino and expel them from our shores. Allow them to colonize Mars or Venus or Jupiter…perhaps without space suits?

In my dotage, I find it truly difficult to hate anybody. I don’t even hate James Alex Fields, Jr. I’d like to, but it’s not worth the effort. He’s a deranged animal who doesn’t deserve to breathe the air that was meant for Heather Heyer…but I don’t hate him. His punishment should be death, but we’re too politically correct in this country to kill him. In that belief, we are too damned naive. The world saw him commit a murder publicly. Instead, we will put him in an overcrowded prison, give him three meals a day and a bed to sleep on, and let him socialize with like-minded people. He will live to be old and gray, and we will forget all about him. That’s not right. People who kill should be killed. People who rob should be treated in an appropriate manner such that they will never wish to rob again. People who rape should be put in a cell with Bubba and some of his friends who have been confined for too long. No, that last is not right. Rapists, in my mind, deserve the same treatment as murderers, child abusers, and those who would beat the elderly and infirm…hang ‘em! I still don’t hate these people, but I firmly believe that our world, the world of good, is much better off without them in it.

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The worst of the worst

I must be going blind. This is not a literal statement, but in a figurative sense, there is no question that my vision has taken a bad turn somewhere. I cannot see why anyone in their right mind or with corrected vision would ever consider Donald J. Trump to be Presidential. Custodial perhaps, but Presidential? It’s not difficult to see why many Americans believe Trump to be a Messiah of some ilk. He boasts; he brags; he puts forth plans that, on the surface, appeal to those with little or no knowledge of how the plans would actually work. He’s a showman; a carnie man, a television personality, a failed businessman who bends the truth to meet his personal requirements.

Trump states that he inherited one million dollars from his family. History shows and Forbes Magazine confirms that the amount was closer to $40 million. With that money, he has amassed an enormous net worth of, according to him, $10 billion. Again, going back to Forbes, that net worth is closer to $4.7 billion. It’s still a lot of money but how it’s been garnered is open to question. In the 1980s, when Trump Plaza was being constructed, a sub-contract when to S&A Concrete, a company partially owned by the mafia. “Trump World Tower, supported by the Quadrozzi Concrete Company, is also tangentially related to La Cosa Nostra. The head of the company, John Quadrozzi Sr., was tied to the Lucchese crime family and indicted for making illegal payoffs to the mob in 1992.”¹ The list goes on and on about Trump’s nefarious dealings with the mob. If one of the qualities of a President is assumed to be “A person of strong character,” Trump fails to meet the standard.

Let’s take a moment to look at some of Trump’s business failures: The Eastern Airlines Shuttle from Boston to New York and Washington ran for 27 years. Many was the time that I would hop a 6:30 am shuttle to head to either destination. It was a great convenience (plus free parking). In 1988, Trump purchased the service for a reported $365 million. He improved the look of the service by adding maple-wood veneer to the floors, chrome-plated seat belt clasps and gold bathroom fixtures. It didn’t work and the Trump Shuttle never turned a profit. The high debt accrued forced Trump to default on his loans, and the shuttle ceased to exist in 1992. In 2006, Trump introduced Trump Vodka, designed to compete with Grey Goose. If you happen to own a bottle of Trump’s vodka, hold onto it because it’s highly doubtful you’ll find it on liquor store shelves today…but you will find Grey Goose.

Claire Sudduth of Time Magazine noted in an article about Trump’s bankruptcies, “”I don’t like the B word,” Donald Trump said in 2010 while testifying in a New Jersey bankruptcy courtroom about his gambling company, Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., which had filed for bankruptcy for the third time. Given the number of times Trump has flirted with bankruptcy, you’d think he’d be used to that word by now.

“In 1990, the banking institutions that backed his real estate investments had to bail him out with a $65 million “rescue package” that contained new loans and credit. But it wasn’t enough, and nine months later the famous developer was nearly $4 billion in debt. He didn’t declare personal bankruptcy, although his famous Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City, N.J., did have to file for it  Trump’s economic troubles continued through the early ’90s, while he was personally leveraged to nearly $1 billion. In 2004, Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts also filed for bankruptcy. The company was only a small portion of Trump’s real estate empire, but he did still have to personally cough up $72 million to keep it afloat. In 2009, the same company filed for bankruptcy again. Yet during all of this, no one ever told Trump, “You’re fired!” Probably because no one could.² In case you weren’t counting, Trump has gone bankrupt four times. He later claimed that those were not his failures as a businessman but strategic decisions to help him make more money. In other words, he manipulated the system for personal gain. Gee, isn’t Bernie Madoff doing time for that, along with several other sleazebags?

Much more could be said about Mr. Trump and his potential candidacy for President of the United States. In truth, he’s a bully, a bigot, a racist, a sexist, a liar, and perhaps the worst individual ever to be considered for the highest office in the land. I never cared much for Mitt Romney when he was Governor of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but you can bet your boots that should he run as a third party candidate, I will be checking his name off in the voting booth.

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1. Politifact…a division of the Tampa Bay Times
2. Claire Sudduth, Time Magazine, April 29, 2011

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A bane to sartorial splendor

I’m boorish. There, I’ve finally admitted to being a bore…or boor…or whatever you wish to call one who really doesn’t care all that much about convention. Sorry, Google and Yahoo don’t help much. Growing up, my knickers – not the British kind – had to be positioned just so; my shirt had to be tucked correctly, and my little clip-on necktie had to be worn correctly. Fortunately, the sixties brought a bit of sense to fashion and we could relax a bit. By the time college came along, sweaters and khakis found their niche but only until one graduated.

It seems to me that the only time I was without a necktie and coat jacket for the next forty years was either late on Saturday afternoon or when I changed into my pajamas at night. Obviously, my memory must be failing on that point, for in hindsight, I cannot conceive of wearing a potential noose around my neck six days a week nor of wearing some kind of suit or sport coat for any more than five or six hours a day. In the ‘office,’ the first thing to find its way to the back of my chair was my ‘uniform’ coat, except in the service where, for some strange reason, you had to wear the goddamn thing as part of the uniform…even on the parade ground. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I don’t like neckties…never have, never will. I don’t know if some women feel the same way about girdles as I feel about neckties, but anything that constrains me…and in the case of neckties, has the chance of killing me…does not rate at the top of my fashion scale. In addition, they’re a scam. ”Why?” you ask. Well, they go from wide to slim and back again, depending on the foibles of this year’s fashionistas and sartorialists. In addition, as time has passed, the old two dollar neckties has become the $150-designer special that one must own to be fashionable. What a bunch of baloney.

Would I have felt better about neckties if I was allowed to wear the clip-ons? No, of course not, because the top button of the shirt would still have to be fastened to the choking point. Should I have worn shirts with the collar a bit larger? Have you ever seen what that looks like? One’s neck appears to be sitting in a hole that’s too big and the Adam’s apple movement is much more apparent. I went from wearing a fourteen and a half shirt collar to wear a seventeen and a half by the time I retired. It was terrible.

What few people realize, I guess, is that the tie was originally a scarf worn by Croatian mercenaries hired by French King Louis XIII. The scarf was not only part of their uniform, but was also used as protection from the cold and as a handkerchief. I don’t know about other men my age or any age who would be caught dead blowing their collective noses into their neckties…just gauche!

For the first few years following retirement, an evening dinner with my spouse required a suit, collared shirt, and noose necktie. I find it idiotic that some restaurants actually require gentlemen to wear neckties and keep an ample supply on hand for those foolish enough to enter looking ‘unclothed.’ It would appear that you are not properly attired unless you are wearing a snot rag around your neck. One of the best things to happen in business was casual Friday, but then some idiots had to screw it up, and many businesses abandoned the idea. I really enjoy watching some of those Silicon Valley workers in their jeans and T’s doing wonderful things without the encumbrance of a suit jacket or necktie.

By the way, it is said that King Louis so like the scarves of his mercenaries that he insisted that neckwear be a part of all formal events at court. Things went downhill or around the neck from there. Yes, it’s true that neckties have gone through more than the width debate. Their popularity has ebbed and flowed with the various decades. Today, the necktie is still certainly a part of the uniform for the military; for many wait staff, and for businesses founded in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries. Hopefully, cultural changes will occur and the necktie will finally be recognized as the most dangerous item of clothing in a man’s wardrobe. After all, what did old time cowboys call a hanging? You got it…a necktie party!

My necktie days are over. Since my plans call for direct cremation, I won’t even have to wear one to the crematorium. Just take me as I am…T-shirt, sweatshirt, and sweatpants. With luck, I won’t even be wearing my sneakers!

Hallelujah!

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I want to be color blind again

There was a time when I was color blind. It’s only taken me something over 80 years to learn that perhaps I was mistaken. Perhaps I wasn’t color blind all those years after all. Black people seem to have a greater propensity to commit criminal acts than other races. Jeff, Beshama, Jimmy, Ernie, Joe, Sandra,and so many more black friends can feel free to call me out on this, but I’m sorry folks, check the Department of Justice figures. I don’t believe they have been skewed or fiddled with or offset in any way just to make the members of our black population look bad.

I watched the news recently as a disgruntled V. Lester Flanigan shot a white reporter and cameraman on a local television station. No, admittedly, I didn’t see the actual shooting; I just heard one gunshot. The camera was then dropped as V. Lester continued his rampage. Now, I don’t happen to be gay and I don’t happen to be black, but I do know what it’s like to be fired without cause and without recourse. Disgruntled? You bet your sweet patootie I was disgruntled. I guess knowing where the next university president was having his affair, with whom and on what day was just cause to him, but it certainly didn’t appear that way to me. What the hell, I’d known for a few years what he was doing. If I hadn’t told anyone before, what kind of a fool would I have been to tell others now. Therefore, yes, I was somewhat more than irritated when I was informed that my job was being abolished (can you say “bullcrap”?). However, I didn’t publish a manifesto and I didn’t go out and shoot people. I consider that my regard for human life is just a little higher than that.

On that same television newscast, another black man was fighting with police as they attempted to bring him into court for arraignment on a second murder charge.  When they read the charges against him, I wondered how one human being could do that to another. There are times when I wonder just how my black friends must feel when one after the other of their own race gets paraded before the television cameras for some heinous deed. Hopefully, they just let it bounce off in much the same way I do when I see a crime televised that has been committed by a white idiot. That’s what I consider all of these people to be, idiots. Nothing, nothing in this world with the exception of war, justifies the killing of one human being by another…nothing. Losing a job does not; racial slurs do not; nasty comments about one’s sexuality do not; a perceived insult is not a cause for killing. You want to kill someone? Kill yourself, but what others say and do, while somewhat painful, is no cause for ending their lives.

I’ve searched and searched and searched for accurate statistics regarding violent crime by race in the United States. One study claims that,  “… during the 2012/2013 period, blacks committed an average of 560,600 violent crimes against whites, whereas whites committed only 99,403 such crimes against blacks. This means blacks were the attackers in 84.9 percent of the violent crimes involving blacks and whites. Interestingly, we find that violent interracial crime involving blacks and Hispanics occurs in almost exactly the same proportions as black/white crime: Blacks are the attackers 82.5 percent of the time, while Hispanics are attackers only 17.5 percent of the time.

“Some observers argue that what causes the overwhelming preponderance of black-on-white over white-on-black violence is “chance of encounter,” due to the fact that there are five times as many whites as blacks in the American population. However, there are only about 30 percent more Hispanics than blacks, yet black-on-Hispanic violence is almost as lopsided as black-on-white violence. This suggests blacks may be deliberately targeting both whites and Hispanics.”

This is all well and good except that the organization releasing this data is a conservative think tank, known for its right-wing thinking. I’m not saying that the data is wrong or right; what I am saying is that I’ve seen too many occasions when statistics have been twisted and skewed. Nonetheless, just looking at the raw data presents a frightening picture of black crime in the United States. And it’s as frightening to members of the black community as it is to other ethnic groups. Civil rights advocate, Van Jones, wrote in a 2005 article, ‘Are Blacks a Criminal Race?’ “African American youth represent 32% of all weapons arrests [and] were arrested for aggravated assault at a rate nearly three times that of whites. A 2012 study by the Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention revealed that in 2010 black youths committed six times more murders, three times more rapes, 10 times more robberies and three times more assaults than did their white counterparts.

Similar statistics were released by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in the “Uniform Crime Reports.” They determined, “In the year 2008, black youths, who make up 16% of the youth population, accounted for 52% of juvenile violent crime arrests, including 58% for homicide and 67% for robbery.” By contrast, the only categories where white youths surpassed blacks were in liquor law violations and driving under the influence.

I don’t know the people who make up these statistics. I know plenty of black people. They don’t fall into any categories in this statistical data. So where are all these black criminals? People like Al Sharpton and other ‘injustice collectors’ will find every reason in the book not to blame crime of any kind on blacks but on the white society in which they live. To me, that’s just plain wrong. Is there greater poverty among members of the black community in the United States? Yeah, possibly. The bigger question is why? Although he’s no longer the hero he once was, Bill Cosby has made some good points. Black fathers should be assuming more responsibility for the children they create. Black mothers should be saying, “No,” and meaning it when more sex is going to lead to more kids and they can’t afford to properly raise the ones they already have. I think there is an innate fear on the part of white people in this country to confront the social ills that affect the black community. Black gangs form because there is safety in numbers; well, screw that. Let’s cut down the numbers so that black kids won’t have to worry about walking down the streets in their own neighborhoods. If more police are required, let’s get them; if more prisons are required, let’s build them; if stricter enforcement of laws are necessary, let’s enforce them. At the same time, however, let us not paint every black person we see with the same damned brush that says, “You’re black, therefore, you’re a criminal to be feared;” that, too, is bullcrap. Let us eliminate the United Negro College Fund and make it the United American College Fund with just as much money going all ethnic groups. Let’s eliminate Black Entertainment Network and Miss Black America contests, and let’s begin to unite, integrate, and truly integrate all races into one giant community. I’m not proposing that we gather in the circle and sing Kumbaya; that’s nonsense. But whatever we’ve been trying so far sure hasn’t worked. The black community and the white community are still miles apart in this country. Let’s stop talking about why we can’t do something better and let’s start talking about how we can do something better. Please, before I die, I want to be color blind once more.

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Learning not to hate

I have come to the conclusion that hatred really isn’t worth my effort. Oh, certainly, it’s a good thing to do every once in a while I suppose, but it takes more out of me to hate, and the person or thing – thing is the worst – doesn’t even know that I’m hating him, her, or it; how dumb is that? And what do we really mean when we say that we “hate” someone or something? Is hate the correct word to be using. In the case of these terrorists all over the world and the horrific acts they are doing, well, yeah, they are worth hating. A better way of putting it is that we shouldn’t really hate them; we should cancel them. It sounds so much nicer, and it eases the pressure on us. We don’t have to use all of our energy hating them…we just cancel them and not have to be concerned any more.

While I’m certain that psychologists and psychiatrists would disagree with me, I can think of only two reasons for hating. The first is if you suffered humiliation or harm at the hands of another, then you might develop a hatred for that individual or group. The second form that I define is learned hatred. Your parents, for example, might hate something for some reason, and they pass that hatred on to you. There is a song in the musical, South Pacific, You Have to Be Carefully Taught; its lyrics are absolutely frightening when thought of in the context of today’s world. This is not to say that they weren’t a bit scary back when the show originally appeared, but just read the lyrics:

 “You’ve got to be taught To hate and fear, You’ve got to be taught From year to year, It’s got to be drummed In your dear little ear You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught to be afraid Of people whose eyes are oddly made, And people whose skin is a diff’rent shade, You’ve got to be carefully taught. You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late, Before you are six or seven or eight, To hate all the people your relatives hate, You’ve got to be carefully taught!”

 The song was first sung in 1949. It was considered too controversial for the stage at that time. We lived in a different world then. For Rogers and Hammerstein, two Jewish song writers who had just seen the atrocities of WWII, it must have been a painful song to compose. For the show’s first audiences, it must have been difficult to accept.

The truth of the matter has become all too obvious; hatred abounds in the world today. Much of it is born out of fear. We all have our fears, whether it’s of spiders, of terrorists, of making it to the end of the month with food on the table; of the crazy neighbor across the street who manicures his lawn with cuticle scissors; or, perhaps, it’s of that other neighbor with a differently colored skin or eyes that don’t look like ours, or whose cooking gives off different smells than our cooking. We don’t know who or what they really are so we develop a fear that easily – too damned easily – turns into a dislike that turns into an avoidance that turns into hatred. Sorry, folks, but it’s a fact of life.

The time has come for us to stand up, as a multiracial group in Chattanooga, Tennessee has done and learn from and about one another. If you haven’t seen the story, don’t worry, it’s somewhere on line. Briefly, an elderly man was tired of people not talking to one another so he invited a multiracial group to his house for dinner. Blacks talked about what it was like to grow up black; whites talked about how they felt different. The first few dinners, held at different houses….well, let’s just say everyone was happy the elderly man was there because they all respected him and he kept the discussions on track. As he said, “I never knew what it was like to wheel my carriage down an aisle in a supermarket and be followed by the manager because he thought I’d try to steal something…just because of my skin color. I just never knew.”

The point is that until we understand and respect one another in this country, we can’t possibly expect to goes through the minds of people we “hate” from other countries. Change is a bitch, especially such a radical change as learning to accept the beliefs of others. But then, change has never been easy; just ask the first settlers; the men and women who put their lives on the line so that America could become an independent nation, etcetera, etcetera. Yes, black and red and yellow and gay and straight and transgender people all have different lives. So do the traditional “white” people who inhabit this world. We have done a piss poor job – all of us – of reaching out to one another to learn our differences; to respect our differences; and to stop hating one another out of fear.

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Good luck, America

So, Dylann Roof was afraid that black people were taking over the world. Well, maybe that’s just not such a bad thing after all. I can hear the screams now…”Are you out of your friggin’ mind?” “Oh, come on, you can’t be serious!” “Didn’t you see all of those shootings in Dorchester and who committed them?” “Yeah, right, and all those black gangs would be taking over our neighborhoods and killing all the white people; that’s what would happen you idiot.”

Yep, possibly true. But why is it true? It’s true because a minority of the minority make all of the headlines because of their actions. I have seen the riots; I have seen the black banners; I have heard the yelling and screaming, and; I have seen the way in which we ‘educated’ whites have treated “uppity n___as” for over 200 years.

Despite all of our legislation; despite all of our efforts to integrate blacks and whites, nothing seems to be working. In one of the most advanced civilizations in history, we cannot overcome something as seemingly simple as two races living together in some kind of harmony. Even when we elected a black president, there was sufficient racism in the legislative branch – and other branches – to stop any kind of progress from being made. Anyone who tries to tell me that racism isn’t behind the gridlock in Washington is a goddamned liar! “We won’t let him get anything passed in the House.” Those are as close to an exact quote as I can remember from one Representative. “Him,” the word was “him,” and who was “he?” He was the first black President of the United States.

America was not ready to accept anything other than a white person for the Presidency. It is doubtful that America will ever be ready for anything but a white presidency. It’s too ingrained in us over our two hundred plus year history to accept anything else. We are creatures of habit; we are NIMBY’s such as there has never been. We talk of how we have advanced our civilization by trying new things, and that’s true, we have. But we sure as hell don’t want to disturb the status quo when it comes to the who of how we govern. Someone said to me, “When the Obama’s leave the White House, they’ll take all the china and silverware.” The person was only half joking. Why? Because that is the impression too many of us have of men and women in the black community. Wait a minute; who gambled away the White House china? Why it was President Warren G. Harding. How many alcoholic white presidents have we had? Too goddamned many. How many wheeler-dealer crooks have we had in the White House? Too goddamned many.

I have no sympathy for Dylann Roof; don’t get me wrong. Certainly, trying to start a race war is not the answer to bringing this country together. He deserves to pay the ultimate price for his actions. My gut feeling is that if he has already confessed to these murders, there is no reason for a trial. “That’s not the American way!” Bullshit…why isn’t it the American way? Why waste time and money to satisfy the blood lust that the media will create over this senseless and heinous act? The same should have been true with the Marathon bomber, the theatre killer, the one who shot Gabby Gifford and others, as well as Edward Hinckley. You did it; we saw you; you pay for your actions in the same manner as your actions. Within 24 hours of your capture, you are on your knees with two shots behind the ear. “Oh, my God, how brutal; how you can even think such a thing; this isn’t China where they do that. This is America; we’re not savages@” Oh, really, what would you call the people I’ve listed above…preachers of God?

Over the past 15 years I’ve watched this country begin to come apart at the seams. Statisticians tell us that crime is going down…and we’re supposed to believe their bullshit! The FBI, the Justice Department, this one and that one tell us how we’re better off than we were a couple of decades ago. Guess what, I don’t believe them. I think they are covering their butts and lying to us. Perhaps it’s because when something like Charleston or Newtown happen, it makes a big splash. Perhaps the media is doing a “better” job of covering the sexual assaults that are taking place on our city and suburban sidewalks and homes. I don’t know what it is, but things sure look pretty fucked up to me.

So what are we looking at for the future? Dylann Roof will go on trial, be convicted and when his execution date comes – somewhere in the next 10 years because of all the automatic appeals – the whole thing will be rehashed and America will once more be told that we cannot tolerate this kind of behavior, the population will be up in arms once more. Will any action have been taken to sort out the potential Dylann Roof’s in our society? No! Will any action have been taken in an attempt to control who and how guns are distributed? No. Will the NRA still own Congress? Yes. Will people still be going on rampages of killing children, classmates, adults of all colors? Yes.

Do I have reasonable solutions to all of these problems? No, not to all of them, but I have a few thoughts:

• Any member of Congress who takes money from any lobby should be immediately ousted from his or her seat in that law-making body.
• Members of the House of Representatives should not be allowed to serve any more than six terms. If they cannot get the job done in twelve years, it’s time to go.
• Senators should be allow to serve two terms in office. Once more, twelve years in Congress is quite enough.
• Certain lobbies are so powerful that they should be disbanded in some way, shape, or form. These include the tobacco, public utilities, pharmaceutical, gun advocacy, and several other vote-buying bastards who serve no useful purpose in our government.
• Certainly our jails are overcrowded. We do not possess the laws to discourage crime. Opponents of the death penalty maintain that the threat of such punishment is not a deterrent, and they may well be right. However, have we ever really tested this? One execution every ten or twelve years is not testing. Executions every day for a couple of months might get a few bad guys to change their minds about committing a serious crime.
• The Second Amendment, at least to me, means that if you own a gun, you do so to protect yourself and your home and that you are a part of a militia to guard the country. Fine, let’s put you to the test. If you voluntarily purchase or possess a gun, you will be trained and sent to wherever the United States is engaged in a ‘police action,’ or whatever we’re calling our conflicts these days. You will serve one year in a front line unit. If you survive, you will be allowed to keep your weapon when you return. However, you will not be allowed to keep an automatic weapon or more than 100 rounds of ammunition.

These are very rough plans and will have to be worked out…by whom? Aha, therein lies the rub. Who creates and who enforces these rules and regulations? Won’t be me; I plan to be dead. Good luck, America; you’re going to need it!

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“They” are bad for America

“They” said that Jack Kennedy could never be elected President of the United States because he was a Roman Catholic.

“They” said that Madeleine Albright would never be confirmed as the first woman to hold the position of Secretary of State.

“They” said that a Black man would never be elected to the highest office in the United States Government.

“They” sort of screwed up, didn’t “they?”

The Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence, says that he is against discrimination of any kind and yet, he signed into law the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) which the proponents of the act maintain is exactly the intent of the law.

“They,” in this case the Indiana legislature didn’t screw up; they screwed the Governor…and he’s a member of their own party. While he is now trying to backpedal on what he signed, the conservative Republicans in his state are going, “Yeah, baby, now we can nail those damned ‘queers,’ faggots,’ ‘lesbian bitches,’ etcetera, ad nauseum, and get ‘em to  hell out of our beautiful state.” This, my friends, is an absolutely perfect example of American bigotry. “Who are these bigots?” you ask. Well, let’s start with Micah Clark, executive director of the American Family Association of Indiana. According to one source, “Clark has been publicly advocating for the bill as a means for allowing anti-LGBT discrimination since December, long before the legislation was even drafted. This directly contradicts the claims made Monday by House Speaker Brian Bosma (R) and Senate President Pro Tem David Long (R) that the legislation never had anything to do with discrimination.”

Are “they” doing the same thing in other states? Well, yes and no. Nineteen other states have similar laws but none go as far as the RFRA in Indiana goes. My question is a simple one when it comes to all of these acts: “What ever happened to the concept of “separation of church and state.” The states won’t interfere with religion and religion won’t interfere with the state. The laws that have now been passed in 20 states – and Arkansas may become number 21 – are nothing more than the last gasp of anti-LGBT politicians who are unwilling to attack real problems and have to satisfy themselves by going after a minority group. Can you say, “Raus Juden..unt off to the camps!” These are the signs of a fading empire.

Will “they” convince the US Congress to take a hard look at the bill that President Clinton signed in 1993 and attempt to rewrite that to include this anti-gay verbiage? There are enough crazy conservatives in both Houses now that it wouldn’t surprise me in the least. We are being laughed at world-wide for our stupidity and this whole Religious Freedom Restoration Act is merely adding fuel to the fire of laughter that can be heard in the camps of both our friends and our enemies.

Meanwhile, America has sent its Secretary of State to Switzerland to try to work out a deal with Iran not to proceed with making nuclear weapons. Secretary Kerry is a very intelligent man; however, he could better be using his time training for the Pan Mass Challenge which he has ridden “religiously” (oops, bad word) for a number of years or sitting in his house in Louisburg Square watching the Final Four. Attempting to negotiate anything with a Middle Eastern country – Israel included – is like trying to argue with a five-year-old screaming child…you will not; you cannot win, whether by reason or force, because they are not listening. They will do what they want to do and you cannot stop them. Sanctions mean nothing to them. “They” are sitting on the other side of the negotiating table attempting to keep from bursting out laughing at your ridiculous posturing. Would Iran like to be a player on the world’s economic stage? Sure, but it doesn’t matter; they’ll get there. They’ll play the little game that the Americans’ want them to play while back home they’re moving ahead with everything they want to do. Middle Easterners have very, very long memories. They have been around far longer than America. It may take a little more time – maybe a Century or three or four – but they’ll get what they want. Meanwhile, they’ll just sit back and watch the further decline of America as a world force because we’re too stupid to recognize the games they play. Come on home, Mr. Secretary; you’re wasting your time. Come on home and see what can be done in our own country, because at the rate we’re going and the people we have in positions of political and industrial power, we are in one hell of a lot of trouble.

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Wake up, Black America

Okay, here we go. Let’s get all of the members of the Asia and Hispanic communities across the country to protest the assassinations of Wenjin Lieu and Raphael Romero to get out there and protest. We can smash windows and loot stores and have Lieu’s new wife and Romero’s widow and children appear on television screaming, “Someone has to pay, and it has to be Black people because a Black man killed our husband and our father.” Then the President has to weigh in and say something like, “Wait a minute; these were police officers. They’re expected to go out and die for the city. Then Al Sharpton can get a few more minutes on the boob tube telling the public about what a great big, jolly fellow Ismaaiyl Brinsley really was and then the Blacks in Bed/Sty and other cities, particularly in St. Louis will have a reason to go out and break more windows and loot more stores and…ah, fuck it, this whole thing is just getting completely out of control.

Michael Brown was a thief and robber; Eric Garner was selling cigarettes illegally and resisted arrest; Tamir Rice was waving around a toy gun from which he had removed the orange cover denoting a toy. What the hell was the crime that these two police officers committed? Were they involved in the Garner takedown? I don’t think so. Was it because they were sitting in their patrol car in Bed/Sty trying to keep peace in the streets? Wouldn’t surprise me in the least.  I’m told that Brinsley had a long criminal record so what the hell was he doing with a gun? Answer that one for me NRA. I’m told he had an “undiagnosed mental illness.” What, in the name of God does that mean? If it was undiagnosed, how do we know that he had a mental illness? Behaving like an asshole does not necessarily qualify one as having an undiagnosed mental illness. I have an undiagnosed brain aneurism. Does that mean I have one or not. Well, I get these headaches so that’s what it must be. Now, if you swallow that one, I have a bridge in the Bed/Sty section of Brooklyn that I’m going to sell on the cheap. If you’re interested, drop me a line.

Seriously, the Michael Brown case is over. To Mom, Dad, and Step-Dad, the kid could do no wrong. The video of him shoving the store clerk shows a different side. To the family, he was just a big kid. To Darren Wilson, he was a credible threat. Eric Garner was a big man. He didn’t want to be arrested; wasn’t going to be arrested without a fight. The police jumped him. As I watched the video again, I heard him keep saying that he couldn’t breathe. If he couldn’t breathe, how come he kept saying it? Did the police overreact? Possibly, but why didn’t they just taser the guy and drop him like a sack of flour. “You’re under arrest” means put your hands behind your back after you’re down on your belly. It doesn’t mean, “Fuck you; stay the hell away from me.”

We’ve lost perspective in this country when it comes to law enforcement and how to react when people in law enforcement attempt to do their job to the best of their ability. “Put wings on pigs,” my ass. To me that mean that it was open season on Ismaaiyl Brinsley, and it’s just too damned bad that he got to fire the first shots.

I’ve got news for you Mr. & Mrs. Black America. Too many of you aren’t paying close enough attention to what your kids are doing. Those who are see their kids accomplishing great things. They see that because they are on top of their kids activities from the moment they leave for school in the morning. They pay attention to the report cards; they go to the meetings with their children’s teachers; They encourage their kids to do the right thing. How involved were you Mr. & Mrs. Brown? How involved were you Mrs. Garner? What was Tamir Rice doing out at night playing with his toy gun, waving it around in the park, and where were his parents?

Please, stop trying to excuse the actions of you and your children by telling me I’m white and don’t understand. That has been the bullshit excuse for decades. Just because the color of your skin is different from mine doesn’t mean that you “deserve” greater consideration or that you have “permission” to do things that would get my ass hauled into jail. We are people; you owe me nothing; I owe you nothing. What I do understand is that I know a hell of a lot of Black people who are smarter than I am, and I have great respect for them. I know a hell of a lot of white people who are dumber than I am and I say the same thing to them that I’m saying to many of you…”Get off your ass and do the best with what God gave you. Stop bitchin’ and start thinkin.’ Berry Gordy, Jr. was a prize fighter who was known as “Canvas Back.” He saw the light; borrowed $50 from his mother and if you don’t know the rest, go look it up.

Years ago, after being beaten to a pulp by some true idiots in the Los Angeles Police Department, Rodney King asked, “Why can’t we all just get along?” I don’t care about “getting along” with the Browns or the Garners or the Rice family. They screwed up…and they won’t take responsibility for screwing up. Wake up Black America. There are some fantastic role models out there for you to emulate. Get with the program and start emulating them.

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Wake up Fergusonians

I am so goddamned sick and tired of hearing how Michael Brown was just a great big jolly kid who didn’t deserve to die that I want to puke.

The way this kid is being portrayed by members of the community, most of whom are probably like me and didn’t know him, is that he was just so wonderful, laughing, the life of the party, etc., and he was shot by that white son-of-a-bitch who was out to get him. That’s what I’m hearing; that’s how I’m interpreting what I’m hearing. Now that white son-of-a-bitch is going to go free, just like that white son-of-a-bitch in Florida who killed Trevon Martin. All the white sons-of-bitches are going to go free because it’s open season on Black people.

What a crock of shit! Michael Brown robbed a store minutes before he was shot to death. He threatened and pushed a clerk or someone, perhaps the man who owned the store and who was so small he wouldn’t stand a chance against someone of Michael Brown’s size and obvious disposition. Give me a break, folks. Michael Brown was killed because he was a punk who thought he was bigger, badder, and the meanest son-of-a-bitch on the street. Evidence says he got two punches into the face of Darren Wilson before Wilson started to shoot.  In my mind, from all that I’ve heard, Michael Brown got exactly what he deserved.

That being said, I don’t believe that Trevon Martin got what he got. I do believe that George Zimmerman should be sitting in jail for murdering that particular 17-year old. I toss that in here just to placate those who have reached the point where they would like to shoot me.

Fact: If you are told to stop by a police officer, stop!

Fact: If you are told to put your hands up by a police officer, get your damned hands in the air!

Fact: If you are told by a police officer to get down on the ground, hit the deck with your arms and legs spread!

These are the facts. I’ve been there; I know this. If a cop tells you, “Stop or I’ll shoot,” you better freeze in your tracks and hope your bladder and bowels don’t let go. I’ve been there; I know this. If you are acting suspiciously – and we were – and a cop comes toward you with a gun, you are well advised to do what “the man” says, regardless of the color of your skin or the size of your body! My personal experience happened in South Boston many years ago. It was a mistake, but it was a very frightening experience.

Had that cop shot and killed any of us, I find it difficult to believe that a large group would gather and burn down businesses in Southie. Being Irish wouldn’t have helped me or my friends in that Irish neighborhood. In Ferguson; in Detroit; in many other cities around the nation, if a Black person is shot, that seems to be time to riot, burn businesses – many owned or franchised to  Black entrepreneurs – and otherwise cause trouble…because “the man” hates Black people.

I read an editorial in the Boston Globe this morning. In it the writer notes, “Being black in America means trying to heal wounds that feel like they’ve been left raw since long before you were born.” I’m sorry but for me, many of these wounds have been self-inflicted. Most of us, Black or white, can only speak anecdotally about our experiences with people of the opposite color. Most of my experiences have been good; some have been extremely unpleasant. When I walked into a Black bar in the Mission Hill section of Boston, I was the first white face in there. Until the members of the Boston Patriots football team walked in behind me, I was terrified. Why, because a group of Black men were already on their feet and coming toward me and from the expressions on their faces, they did not have handshakes on their collective minds. Had we not been previously invited by the bar’s owner, things could have gotten ugly. The writer goes on to say, “Over and over he (St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch) repeated two themes: That the loss of Brown’s life was tragic; that Wilson was justified. This reinforces a message that gets whispered and shouted from black parents to their children and all along the family tree: Your life is not your own, your body is all you have, and even that guarantee can be voided in this country. Wait a minute; that’s not a Black thing; that’s true of every single one of us. Our lives are not our own. Our lives are governed by the environment in which we live. Our body is all any of us have, and it can be snatched from us with the snap of one’s fingers. Don’t you dare go attaching color to something that is universal. Yes, if you choose to live in a violent neighborhood, your chances of survival go down, but please don’t tell me that you are required to live in that neighborhood. There are  many people who manage to get out of those neighborhoods by hard work and an understanding of why they should move.

I am sick to death of this “Woe is me” attitude that I’m hearing from people like Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and the protesters in Ferguson. Stop blaming all of your problems on the white man. Burning out businesses and turning over and burning cars is not the answer. Organize; run your own candidates for public office; work to get out the vote and vote yourself. Stop bitching and start building opportunities.

 

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Homo sapiens but not human beings

The murder of James Foley proves once more that Islamic extremists place little value on human life…any human life, including their own. It also demonstrates the degree of cowardice to which these people will go, as they cover their faces to do their horrific deeds.

My initial reaction to Mr. Foley’s beheading was, “Let’s go bomb the bastards out of existence,” but that would kill too many innocent civilians. These arrogant sons-of-bitches don’t give a damn about who gets killed whenever and wherever they choose to fight. In fact, much of the video that I have seen shows them terrorizing and killing civilians who don’t practice religion exactly as they do. My questions are simply, “Does every soldier in your group carry a prayer rug and turn to Mecca five times each day? Do you respect the Quran and follow its teachings precisely? If you form an Islamic state, how will you keep other religious fanatics from overrunning you and killing you for their beliefs? I would imagine that the idea of prayer has gone out the window right about now since killing is what these people seem to believe in. As far as the Quran is concerned, there is probably not one hafiz in the entire fighting group. As far as a separate state for this type of warlord is concerned, I have some news for these people. It won’t be external warfare that will bring down their state; it will be civil unrest that will be its downfall.

James Foley becomes the second American journalist to be beheaded by radical Muslims. The first, the video of Daniel Pearl, was shocking. The murder of Foley is shocking, but this public execution is no more or less than what these homo sapiens do to their own. Khalid Sheik Mohammed is the name of the man who killed Daniel Pearl. It took time to identify him and to catch him, but the last I heard he was still at Gitmo. We don’t know who “British John” is…yet. We know he’s the head of a British foursome called “The Beatles;” we know several other things about him, including the fact that he is a coward who has to cover much of his body to hide his identity. Don’t worry, John, analysts today are very good at picking up on small things. Knowing, for example, that you’re left-handed will be a big help in identifying you. I’m not certain you’ll get to Guantanamo Bay, however, because Jim Foley was a very popular guy, and strange things often happen to animals twixt the barn and the pen.

ISIS or ISSL or whatever they’re calling themselves on this particular day has indicated that it has additional American captives that it will kill. I offer my condolences to the wives, fathers and mothers, sisters and brothers of those captives, but I have no doubt they will carry out their threat. You see, human life is cheap in the eyes of these homo sapiens {please note that I do not call them other than by the genus by which other humans are called], and human life from another country is cheapened further because they believe that it is tainted in some way. Their thinking is different; they are wired differently from human beings. They are a throwback to the hunter/gatherers of eons ago. When they are encountered, the only treatment of them is a quick death. They understand that. It’s unfortunate that they still exist, but they’ve left their aeries in the mountains, and it is now incumbent on real people to eliminate them.

Am I trying to be funny? Absolutely not! I find the assassinations of Daniel Pearl and James Foley revolting. War is war, and combatants are meant to kill one another. Innocents like Pearl and Foley are to be left alone. “What about our wives and children that the Americans have killed with their bombing?” they ask, to which my response is, “You hide behind their skirts and expect to be protected?” How stupid can you be? That is just another example, first, of how cowardly they are, and second, how little regard they have for human life.

I abhor violence, whether it’s a cop beating a homeless woman in California, a Black kid in Ferguson, Missouri shoving and then threatening a clerk after the kid and his friend have robbed the store, bullying by anyone whether physical, psychological, or through texts and e-mails, or some coward in the Middle East cutting off the head of an innocent civilian…I cannot stomach such behavior. I wonder how “British John” would feel if put in the same situation as Jim Foley. My bet is that he’d cry like a baby and piss all over himself. Sorry, but if that’s the way you wish to live; it’s probably the manner in which you will die.

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