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COVID Diaries Pt. 11

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Let Them Eat War

I didn’t really want to write this post, but I felt the need to document more of the shit that has gone down during this time.

Jacob Blake was shot seven times in the back in Kenosha, Wisconsin.  Blake had some previous issues with the law and was currently charged, but not yet convicted, in the sexual assault of his ex-girlfriend who is mother to his three kids.   The kids were in the car as their Dad was shot seven times opening the front door to the vehicle.

It’s obvious that Blake was black.  White guys doing what he was on video are never shot seven times in the back.  The “law and order” crowd still find it justified.  “He should have listened to the cops”.  Yeah, you are right, he should have.  That doesn’t mean he deserved to be shot, much less seven times in the back.   He has survived but will probably be paralyzed from the waist down.

After this, predictably, protests erupted in Kenosha.  They then turned into riots and looting.

It’s the typical cycle.  A cycle that would stop if A. Police would stop shooting unarmed black men or B. Police would be held accountable for actually shooting unarmed black men.   That’s what it takes for protests to end.  It doesn’t take militarized police, or the national guard, or unmarked jackbooted thugs to come and squash it.  It also doesn’t take armed militia members.

Which brings us to a 17-year-old from Antioch, IL.  He was just over the border from Kenosha, so his Mom drove him across state lines to Kenosha where he was going to protect businesses with his AR-15.  Of course, when things got dicey (with both sides armed) he shot and killed two protesters and wounded another.   A TEENAGER with a rifle that was illegal for him to own took to vigilante justice.   Afterwards he walked towards police with his hands up and they drove right by him.  He actually went home and wasn’t arrested until the next day.

Before the murders, he got water bottles from the police and they thanked him for being there.

Think about that.  The local police were just fine with an armed, underage, vigilante with his gun there on the streets of a tense situation.  Then after he killed other human beings, and people were yelling to the police that he had done so, they just let him go.

If a black gentleman was walking down the middle of the street with a gun and people yelled that he had killed someone, he probably wouldn’t be alive to tell about it.  Now this kid is having money raised for him, and right-wing talking heads are praising him.  HE IS A MURDERER, who had no business being there to “protect property.”  If this kid gets off, it will take protests to a whole new level.

Next, far-right nationalist groups held a rally outside of Portland, Oregon and then turned it into a makeshift parade to drive right through downtown.  These assholes in their trucks were shooting paintballs and pepper spray into protestors.  This is assault.  They should have been arrested, but no, the police escorted them.

Then one of these assholes got shot and killed by a protestor. 

This protester should also be arrested and also charged with murder.  He murdered someone; he should go to jail.   But the police found him and killed him too.  He’s also a white guy, but he’s from the wrong side, so he gets shot to death while the teenager on the other side got to go home for the evening before being peacefully arrested.

They said he threatened them with a gun, but they didn’t think there was any body cam footage.  How convenient.   This man had given an interview to VICE and told them that his friend and him were threatened with a knife and that’s why he shot.  He was in fear that his friend was going to be injured or killed, so he shot the assailant.

He was wrong.  He shouldn’t have shot.  Just like the kid in Kenosha.   Both of them are claiming self-defense, but both should have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law.   Only now, one is dead and the other has had hundreds of thousands of dollars raised for him.

This is going to bring me to my most valuable point.   The fucking guns are the problem.  Nobody should be armed at a protest, on either side.   It’s too easy to take a life, and too easy for things to escalate.  People like to think a gun will keep them safe in those circumstances, but it only rachets up the danger.  The right always have guns at these things, but now those on the left are doing the same, and it’s leading to more death, and takes the focus off of the police brutality we see going on.

The thing is, this is what the White House wants.  It is ramping up the law and order rhetoric and painting all protesters as rioters and looters.  It doesn’t condemn the Kenosha kid, but the violent antifa are a problem.   He WANTS this conflict.  Every clash and every murder help him.  It riles up his base and scares the suburbs.  More death and destruction help his cause and help him seem like the badass that can prevent it, even though this is going on right now on his watch.   It’s throwing gas on the fire when the country could use a real leader.  It is evil.

Not to mention that a couple other unarmed black men have been killed since Blake.  Like I said before, STOP KILLING UNARMED BLACK PEOPLE OR AT LEAST FACE CONSEQUENCES FOR DOING SO.  It’s THAT fucking simple.  That happens, protests stop.  Seems pretty fucking simple doesn’t it.

But it’s not, and cops will still get off.  This teenager probably will too, and this cycle will keep repeating itself. 

Let’s break the cycle.

COVID Diaries Pt. 7

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Old fashioned fascism will take it away

I’m kind of in disbelief today.  I guess I shouldn’t be, as this follows patterns from the Orange in Chief.  Anyway, our president sent Department of Homeland Security officers to Portland, Oregon.  These officers were driving unmarked rental vans, wearing camo with no identifying gear (names etc.) and these officers were snatching people from the street without charging them and throwing them into vans and taking them to unknown locations to interrogate.   

They let everyone go, especially when they asked for their lawyers.

This should piss everyone off.  Random federal officers snatching people from the streets is something that happens in dictatorships.  This is something we condemn whenever it happens in other countries.  But it’s happening in America.

After the military basically called the president out for using them against their own people at Lafayette Square, he knew he couldn’t do that any longer, so he called in his own goon squad from DHS.  It’s been reported that he plans to do this in cities with Democratic leadership, including Chicago, soon.

This is just the crybaby trying to appear tough before the election.  To rile up his base and stick it to the sanctuary cities around the country. This has nothing to do with law and order, this is strictly being used to intimidate.

I’d like to point out to the second amendment activists that THIS is what you always argue for.  You need your guns to prevent government tyranny.   Where are you now?  You should all be joining these protests, especially in places like Portland.   But there has been nothing but silence from the 2A crowd.  Why, you ask?  Well it’s simple.  Gun rights activists don’t REALLY care about that government tyranny thing unless it’s happening to them.   Have lockdowns to prevent people dying in a pandemic?  Well by golly gee, let’s get my military cosplay and my guns and go to the capitol fully armed because I can’t get a fucking haircut.   But a secret police force snatching citizens?  Well it’s not citizens I like, so I guess it’s okay.

It’s just hypocrisy and bullshit on so many levels.

Next, the tangerine traitor is pushing hard for all kids to go back to school.  I mean we’ve had record cases recently and some states have regressed into shutting a bunch of things down again, so we’re good right?

It just amazes me that we are even having this debate.  Doing this WILL get people sick and WILL end up killing people.  There is no easy way to do this safely, and you still have a sizeable portion of the populace who refuse to wear masks.  One of my best friends runs IT for a school district in rural Illinois, and many of the parents there said their kids would never be forced to wear a mask.

Holy shit people are stupid.  Just mind-numbingly, astonishingly, selfishly stupid.

Now read this quote from the Governor of Missouri, Mike Parson:

“These kids have got to get back to school. They are at the lowest risk possible. And if they do get COVID-19, which they will—and they will when they go to school—they’re not going to the hospitals. They’re not going to have to sit in doctor’s offices. They’re going to go home and they’re going to get over it.”

He’s telling you right now that kids WILL get COVID in schools.  Just flat out admitting it.   Let’s say he’s right about kids getting it and nothing happening to them.  What then about their families, the teachers, the assistants, the bus driver, the school nurse, the lunch staff?  I guess we don’t care that kids would be carriers and could give it to them.

But he’s WRONG about kids just “getting over it.”   There are tons of deaths in younger people as well, and we still don’t know about negative effects that could last their entire life.  And if they do get gravely sick, we overload our hospitals once again. 

Just throwing our kids in as sacrificial lambs is NOT okay.  What kind of fucking animals are we?

Well it’s a re-election animal.  The president wants so desperately for everything to be back to normal so he has a better chance of re-election.  That is what is fueling jackboots in our cities, the push to open things up and the willingness to just let our children die.

Don’t fall for it.