Ladies and gents (and nonbinary folx too), please give a big round of applause to Ethel Merman — sorry, uh, this wack-ass Drumpfnik woman here…
And that black congressman just happens to be a former Panther, too. One who was with the organization at the same time as the assassinated Fred Hampton. If this isn’t a fuck-you to him and all he’s ever stood for, I don’t know what it could be.
But maybe we should cut the boyz in blue some slack, eh? After all, it’s hard work bayonetting tires, knocking out peacenik grandpas, and just generally running amuck and brutalizing people on the public dime.
Sam Seder and Nomiki Konst break down a weird phenomenon: Bricks appearing in the middle of various cities during protests, with no construction sites nearby. The mystery was apparently solved by an anonymous videographer who happened to catch something going on just below their window in Boston:
So it appears that cops are planting truckloads of bricks for protesters — or “protesters” (note the quotes, there for a reason). To do what with? Throw ’em through windows, presumably. So the cops have a pretext to arrest people they might otherwise have to leave alone because they’re not doing anything wrong.
Hey, if it works with drugs, it must work just as well with building materials, right?
Dr. Mike Hansen goes into the anatomy and physiology of asphyxia, and how it applies to the death of George Floyd:
So there you have it…that’s how he was able to say “I can’t breathe”, right before he passed out and died. He had another officer on his back, compressing his diaphragm. He was able to breathe out, enough to speak a few words, but he couldn’t breathe in. He was kept from breathing in by cops on his back and neck.
Gasp! How could anyone say such a terrible thing? Because it’s true, duh. I know that, and so, probably, do you, but in case there’s any doubt, just check out this prize specimen right here:
“All Lives Matter!” he shouted, right before nocking an arrow on his hunting bow and trying to fucking kill somebody. (Whereupon he promptly got an object lesson in why you don’t say one thing and do its opposite when you’re surrounded by a rightfully angry crowd.)
And if you look closely at his bow arm, you’ll see he’s wearing an armguard. Archers wear those to keep the bowstring from whacking them once an arrow is shot. Yup, that’s right, he came prepared. So our neighborhood vigilante here can’t even use the excuse that he just impulsively did it because they attacked him. Or because they provoked him. Nope, he went in there LOOKING to kill somebody. For no good reason, other than to make the (lame) point that right-wingers who claim to value “all lives”, actually don’t value any other than their own.
And then he promptly lied to the media when the TV reporters interviewed him, too. Because of course he would. Did you see him blame “two black African-Americans”? He claims they beat him up because he said “All Lives Matter”, but actually it was because he shot at someone. Seems that the only thing that can stop “bad” people with no weapons but their bodies and their constitutional right to free speech is a “good” one with a bow and arrow, eh?
But here’s the thing: You don’t bring a gun to a knife fight, and you don’t bring your hunting bow to a peaceful protest for minority rights. You don’t use those things to persuade people, you use them to threaten, injure, and kill. If you go in on unarmed protesters while armed for bear, you are NOT the good guy. It doesn’t matter if you’re a cop or a civilian. Any words you shout are automatically rendered meaningless by your actions, because those speak louder. And what you do unto others is fair grounds for retaliation.
So, if you believe that all lives actually matter, you shouldn’t be surprised if your violent response to a peaceful protest is met with counter-violence. And you shouldn’t be offended if you come out of it with a black eye or two. (Metaphorical or literal.)
Bowhunter Brandon doesn’t actually care about all lives, because he tried to take one that day, and failed. Frankly, he’s lucky they only pummeled him a bit, and didn’t kill him as he tried to do with them.
Linda Tirado, interviewed on CBC, doesn’t mince words about what happened to her. Or what she’s going to do, and keep doing, with two eyes or just one. Namely, holding the system accountable, and telling the truth, whether the powers that be like it…or NOT.
Japan’s ambassador to Canada has some interesting insights:
Surprise! Japan’s secret weapons are science, technology, communitarian solidarity, internal public preparedness, and international co-operation. Something the amnesiacs just to the south of us, in all their not-so-rugged “individualism”, are forgetting even as their death toll has surpassed 100,000.
Please note that he said this all the way back in 1967. And yet, were he still living, he could just as easily have uttered it yesterday. The very conditions black US-Americans face today were already in place back then. And they had been for decades, as far back as the end of the US Civil War, in fact. The same hatred, discrimination and oppression that were holdovers from the slave era have endured to this day. Dr. King didn’t condemn riots OR “rioters”, but rather, the conditions that DRIVE people to riot.
Knowing that, it becomes a lot more understandable why Minneapolis erupted in “riots” recently in response to the police killing of George Floyd, doesn’t it?
And if you think my characterization of them is harsh, stick around for the last minute or two, when an emergency-room doctor chimes in. He’s already working his ass off (as are all his colleagues), and not enjoying a day in the sun, because all these heedless halfwits are out there thinking it’s suddenly safe again to gather in crowds…when, in fact, it’s far from it. The last thing he wants to see is them in his intensive-care ward. The second-last thing he wants to see is them, doing what they’re doing right there when a killer virus is making the rounds, and at least one carrier in every three has no symptoms. Namely, exposing themselves and countless others to it when they should be taking every possible measure to avoid it.
The lockdown is still in place, and frankly, it should be much tighter than it is. People who think it just magically doesn’t apply to them, or that they’re somehow immune, may well deserve to get sick in order to learn that hard lesson…but the innocent people they’ve exposed through their own blind recklessness do not.
Fear doesn't travel well; just as it can warp judgment, its absence can diminish memory's truth. What terrifies one generation is likely to bring only a puzzled smile to the next.
--Arthur Miller, "Why I Wrote 'The Crucible'", The New Yorker, October 21, 1996
All opinions here are the brain-wrackings of Sabina C. Becker, unless otherwise credited. If you cite them, please give credit where due.
