Trump – Oscar Valdes

Black Woman Against White Man

Hello America!
We’re getting a chance to see how much we’ve evolved.
Are we really where we think we are racially and sexually?
To hear the Trump side, women should know their place. At home raising children. Mind you, that is a most honorable choice, but women in this country have been fighting for parity for a long time.
They only gained the right to vote in 1920, with the passage of the 19th amendment, two years behind England and 27 years behind New Zealand, the first nation to allow it.
Kamala Harris was born in 1964, only a year before the Civil Rights Act passed in 1965, outlawing discriminatory voting practices.
All these years in between it’s been a hard slog for women.
They’re still having old White men decide if they can have an abortion or not.
So, yes, it’s high time for women to form a solid block and beat Trump and all that he stands for.
Kamala Harris will be standing for all women this November 5th. Democratic women and Republican women and independent women. Women from the right, the left and the center.
Yes, because a woman president will open a different kind of dialogue for American women.
‘Baby, you know what it means to be one of us,’ they will be saying to Kamala as they march to the polling booth or make their contributions to the campaign.
Will Harris be a catalyst for parity in the workplace? Yes, she will.
Will women stand a chance to push up the so called glass ceiling? Yes, they will.
It will be most interesting to see leaders of industry (mostly male) having to speak to a woman president to try and gain favor.
Damn, it will be good to see that.
So Republican men who are casting their lot with Trump need to rethink their positions.
We don’t need testosterone to manage our nation. We need brains, empathy, imagination, moral strength, a commitment to the freedom of all human beings.
It’s time, fellows. If you’re falling behind in earnings, don’t blame in on women. They have as much a right to earn what you do. If you have the greater capacity, then you earn more.
If not, you earn less. And work on it if you want better.
The beauty of a woman running for president is that it puts all prejudices on the table.
So we can better deal with them.
It’s high time we did it. It will be good for us. Damn good, in fact.
I’m reminded of something the distinguished poet and writer Erica Jong once said about the feminist movement. I was in the audience when she said it. That the feminist movement had helped men become better fathers. And how right she was.
So, yes, the lack of barriers to women’s advancement ends up being better for all of us.
For we will be freer and wiser as a result.
So onwards, American women, this is your moment. Seize it, damn it.
Don’t let it slip away like you did when Hillary Clinton ran in 2016.
The world has been waiting to see tangible proof of your full powers. So, go for it.
And yes, Joe Biden made this moment possible when he chose Kamala. So thank you, Mr President.

My short books ‘Putin’s Revenge – The Final Days of Yevgeny Prigozhin’ and ‘Letters to a Shooter,’ are out on paperpack and eBook. Go to Oscar Valdes Author Central (Amazon)

99 days left to election day in the US

It’s Harris’s Moment

And she’s having a ball.
Flush with excitement, she addressed the crowd at her first rally in Wisconsin and earlier at campaign headquarters in Delaware and each time she exuded confidence.
‘People, I’m doing this and we are going to win!’
And she smiled broadly, her eyes sparkled and right in front of the cameras she went up to Doug, her husband, and gave him a big kiss in the mouth. And they both loved it.
She’s acting like’s she’s already won.
‘Fellow Americans, we got this!’
And news had gone out that in a 24 hour period, she’d raised 81 million bucks! Now that’s a lot of cash, folks. Lots of money to persuade the undecided that going Democrat is the only way.
By contrast, Trump is already depressed.
Angry, sensing that something is slipping away from him, he can’t take it. He’s bitter than the spotlight is not on him.
‘Where’s the love?!’ Trump is saying. ‘Goddammit, I took a bullet for all of you! Have you forgotten so quickly?’
And yes, Mr Trump, we very much regret that you were the target of an assassination attempt and are very glad that you are alive and there for your loved ones. But that doesn’t get you the election.
But Trump cannot resist.
Knowing that campaign funds allotted to Biden would now be transferred to Harris, he instructed his lawyers to file a suit with the FEC (Federal Elections Committee) to block the transfer arguing that it was illegal. It is not.
And then he heard that Musk was now changing his mind and that he would not be putting out 45 million dollars a month into a super PAC to help his campaign. And Musk added something about his not being into the cult of personality. Ouch! That had to hurt Trump when he heard it.
But it goes to show the impact Biden’s decision and Harris’s enthusiasm had on Musk. And I hope Republicans read that because, yes, you still have time to change your minds and vote Democrat. We welcome you, brothers and sisters. You know we love you.
And, secretly, Republican women are wondering, why in hell can we not have a woman be a candidate for President?
And they shake their heads and seem puzzled. It’s not like they haven’t had bold women step front, it’s that they have not got support. There was Margaret Chase Smith in 1964, Michele Bachmann in 2012, Carly Fiorina in 2016. Pioneers, all of them, ahead of their times. But ignored by most Republicans.
And while Trump stews in his frustration, envious of the energy and enthusiasm that Harris is showing, angry that all Americans are not thrown into fits of ecstasy when they hear him or see him show up, President Biden has quietly found his peace.
Biden can say to himself, ‘I picked Kamala Harris to be my vicepresident and she became vicepresident – the first one ever – and now I’ve endorsed her to be president and she will become president – the first one ever.’
But it gets better. Biden can say, ‘I was essential to Kamala’s political development. I chose her to be my running mate after she’d dropped out of the race in 2016, then I nurtured and guided her all these years she’s been at my side. And she learned what she had to learn, and I transmitted to her the joy of being the leader of this country, the profound satisfaction and honor that is to work hard on behalf of the American people. She learned fast and I know she will not disappoint. She is my legacy. So I now can breathe easier and accept that though my time to lead is coming to an end, I can be proud that I lent a hand in the making of our next president.’
Biden recognized that he had got stuck for a moment after criticism of his performance against Trump in the June 27th debate.
But then he fell ill with covid and he got away from the lights and the public attention that come with being president. And being alone as he isolated to recover from the virus, he reflected at length on his role as leader of the United States.
And he recognized that he had done his work and he was proud of it.
He smiled as he thought about it, feeling relieved. He enjoyed seeing the enthusiasm Harris radiated when she spoke to people about the tasks ahead.
And he knew that she was ready and she would become the 47th president of the United States.
And he remembered a little private moment she had with Harris a few months before the debate had triggered the events that followed.
They were alone in the Oval office, Biden and Harris, talking about something and he had had a rough time sleeping the night before and so he paused and looked at her, ‘Kamala, do you have trouble sleeping?’
And smiling, she said, ‘I sleep like a baby. But every now and then, I may have a little difficulty, and I will just get up and read something and then go back to sleep. You know how they say that it’s not good to stay in bed if you can’t sleep. But if I’m having trouble falling asleep and I turn and see that Doug is awake, I then ask, ‘baby, will you read me a story?’
‘Sure, honey,’ he answers. And when he reads to me, I just relax and five minutes later I’m sound asleep.’
Biden laughed.
‘And the funny thing is, it works for him, too,’ continued Harris, ‘because he tells me, “the moment I see you fall asleep, I put the book down and I fall asleep, too.”’

Good night, folks.

My short books ‘Putin’s Revenge – The Final Days of Yevgeny Prigozhin’ and ‘Letters to a Shooter,’ are out on paperpack and eBook. Go to Oscar Valdes Author Central (Amazon)

104 days left to election day in the US

Still Hamas Does Not Surrender. Why Not?

Photo by Edmond Dantu00e8s on Pexels.com

Because they have innocent civilians in Gaza shielding them. Because they’re counting on world opinion restraining Israel’s determination to defeat them.
Israel belongs in Palestine. So do the Arabs. But reckless leadership has kept the flames of enmity and violence alive in Arab hearts and minds for more than a hundred years.
And the cost has been enormous. Not only in lives lost but in opportunities missed.
Jews never conquered the vast territories that Arabs did in times past when they reached into North Africa and Spain which they held for centuries.
Arab minds and their creativity gave us enormous advances in the sciences and humanities. But then the lights dimmed and other peoples took the lead.
Why shouldn’t Israel be in Palestine?
Both Arabs and Jews have inhabited that land since the beginning of recorded history.
Jews have migrated all over the world, and they have faced hatred and persecution in nearly every place they have gone.
All the while they longed to return to Palestine.
The migration back to Palestine started before WWI and then grew steadily, even against opposition of major powers like England. Then came the Holocaust and the horrors of it hardened Jewish resolve to return to their ancestral home.
When the United Nations consented to the creation of Israel in November 1947, borders were drawn that allowed for Jews to coexist with their Arab neighbors. But such was the resistance of the Arab world that immediately after Israel declared itself a nation in May of 1948, the surrounding Arab nations attacked it. And it hasn’t stopped.
Yet every single time Jews have beat back the Arabs.
It’s going to be 76 years this next May, and still the Arab world doesn’t step up and say, ‘Let Israel live!’ ‘We will strive for peaceful coexistence. We renounce violence.’
Is there any oil in Palestine? No. Arab countries have the oil riches.
And yet Arabs look at Jews with envy.
What Jews have done is affirm themselves in a way contemporary Arabs have not been able to.
Jews took what land they hand and made it cultivable. They toiled and invented and transformed themselves into a leading nation. All the while the surrounding Arabs watched in astonishment. Maybe they were asking themselves, ‘there must be something magical about that land that Jews have prospered so much. We need to get back in there.’
But that’s not it.
What Jews have is a determination to succeed that Arabs have not found in themselves. They look back on their history and know it’s in there, somewhere, but they just can’t find it at this time. They look to their leaders but they don’t get answers.
Arabs are ruled by kings and dictators but not by elected representatives. And so until the Arab peoples embrace democracy, there will not be peace in the Middle East.
The Arab world’s tolerance of the existence of Hamas is a sign of how much they need to grow politically. They seem unable to publicly reject the group’s violence toward Israel.
And so Israel must keep affirming its right to exist and keep prospering.
And the West will keep supporting them.
Israel has work to do also. They should veer more to the political center.
Coexistence with a Palestinian nation is possible, so long as that nation is demilitarized. This must be done because of the long history of attacks on Israel.
Israel has had great leaders but a man like Netanyahu is toxic. The other day he said that Palestinians should be relocated to the Congo. Yep. It made front page news.
He has yet to explain how come Israel’s military vigilance did not anticipate the Hamas attack.
Fortunately, Israel’s Supreme Court came out against a Netanyahu inspired rule to weaken the court’s power and so give himself more.
The fight for the survival of democracy is constant. Here in America we now have a candidate who wants to diminish our system. I speak of Donald Trump, who incited an attack on Capitol Hill on January 6th 2021, aiming to overturn the results of the election that defeated him.
But America will beat Trump. And his supporters will have to reconsider how to better deal with opposing views.
The enemy of Arabs in the Middle East is not Israel. It is despotism and dictatorship in their own lands.
To find their voice, Arabs must fight against those who suppress it.
Not having a voice means not thinking clearly and allowing others to choose your fate.
Which is why so many Gazans have died.
Hamas, surrender now!

The Immigrant and America

In Europe, nations are paying countries in Africa to hold back immigrants. To not let them pass.
And still they pass.
Here in America they get through. Not all but a good number.
But the newcomers are often seen as a source of distress.
Trump said the other day that they were ‘polluting’ America’s blood.
And yet, his current wife and mother of his youngest son is an immigrant.
He left that out.
In fact, his first wife and mother of his first three children was an immigrant also.
He didn’t forget that, he just didn’t think it was necessary to mention.
Of course, there are different classes of immigrants.
I’m reminded of a statement made by a white man from one of our northern states who said, ‘Why can’t we get immigrants from Scandinavia?’ or something like that.
So, yes, there’s a clearly racial issue that complicates the matter of immigration. Here and in Europe. Anywhere.
As Trump implied, it has to do with racial purity.
If you’re dark you’re impure.
That didn’t stop the boards of Google, Microsoft and Adobe, huge multinational companies, from appointing immigrants to lead them. Dark ones, too.
And it didn’t because they found value beneath the skin of those folks.
And those folks had to have a lot of value to get those jobs, because there surely were a lot of lily white people lining up to get the gig.
On the other hand, I can definitely see how a settled community does not want to see itself disrupted by having to accommodate a newcomer. But a country like Italy, which pays Libya money to keep immigrants from getting in boats to cross the Mediterranean, could use a little disruption in their ways of thinking because they’re not doing that well.
Yesterday, I saw a photo of a line of Italians waiting to get a taxi ride and they put up with it. Here in the US you just call Uber or Lyft. So something is wrong in Italy that they’re coming up short of ideas to generate economic opportunity.
Maybe some of the dark colored people trying to get in may have a clue as to how to improve things. You just never know where good ideas may come from.
I believe that something gets ossified and stunted when a nation becomes obsessed with keeping people of different colors and shapes from coming into the country.
And just like disruption is important to rejuvenate an economy, by bringing in new ways of doing things, socially, the disruption of letting in other people opens new ways to relate to each other.
In America, the South, which relied heavily on slave labor, lost the productivity war against the North in the years leading up to the Civil War. Industry was far more developed in northern states. They still had racism, but they were more open. And that made the difference.
Countries that have lots of their people leaving them are failed states in one way or another.
So it makes sense to try and help them out so they can keep their population. But adventurous folks will always try to go beyond their borders to see what they can do.
Not all immigrants will be a plus to the receiving country. But the majority will.
And the world will keep changing as it must.
To avoid rigidities.
To keep challenging ourselves.
To open our minds.
To grow.
When countries don’t do that they get leaders with limited imagination.
They get people like Viktor Orban in Hungary, or Trump here in America.
Or Putin in Russia.

Grieving the Loss of White America

In an hour or two, the second Republican debate will take place.
I won’t see it but will take a look at the highlights from it in the newspapers.
I hear that Trump won’t show up. Again. Apparently he was planning to meet with auto industry strikers instead. Good luck.
He’ll need it because he’s getting bad advice, while making a mistake in believing the polls that put him ahead of Biden.
In today’s debate no one will say that the rage that Trump is stirring in his followers is a sign of the grieving of the loss of White America. They won’t say it because they’re afraid of the added rage it will ignite. But that’s the core issue driving his followers.
Lamentably for them, America is turning Brown and there’s no stopping it.
The other day Trump said that, once in office, he’d order the ‘greatest mass deportation’ the nation had seen. Right. In his dreams.
Too bad that White America has fallen for a man without the capacity to deal with their grief.
Had he been able to, after he was elected in 2016, he could’ve started the greatest education effort the nation has ever seen.
But he didn’t do that. Instead he settled for building a Wall in our southern border and the lowering of taxes for the already wealthy. He took the easy choices.
His followers would’ve been much better off if he had been honest with them. Sat down and said, ‘folks, I will do everything in my power, to help you become the most skilled workers you can become. So you won’t have to fear anybody, no matter what their color, because you will have developed the ability to continually adapt and the unquenchable thirst for self improvement.’ All of which entails a good bit of hard work.
But he couldn’t say that because self improvement is a foreign – yes, foreign – concept to him.
When he looks at himself in the mirror he sees a finished product, and a ‘terrific’ one, while the majority of us have to keep trying every day to improve our abilities.
Take the Russo-Ukrainian war as an example. It is a complex affair that has caused immense pain, but Trump comes up with the notion that he can settle the conflict in one day.
Yes, he said it.
If you believe that, then you likely were tempted to join the rioters that stormed the Capitol building on January 6th 2021, and truly believed you could change the will of the American electorate. If you resisted the urge to join, congratulations, you preserved your freedom.
I you did take part, you now must face the stark reality that you were duped.
There will be no one to pardon you because Trump will not win the next election. He will not even be the presidential candidate for the Republican party because sober, level headed party members, know that something is deeply wrong with the party and that reelecting Trump is a big step back for our nation.
Those level headed party members are not the ones making the most noise these days, but come election day they will march straight up to the poll booth and cast their voice for the future of the nation, not for a man who’s lacking the depth to tell his followers, ‘develop your abilities and rise to be the best you can be. And you will embrace other peoples because doing so enrich us and broadens our humanity’.

Elections 2024. Early Forecast

Dianne Feinstein (D) announces she will not run for reelection as California Senator. Age is the key factor. She will be 90 later this year.
Nikki Haley (R), 51, steps out as a candidate for president, challenging Trump who is 76.
Tim Scott (R), 57, is to announce his own candidacy in the next week or two.
Ron DeSantis (R), 44, is sure to follow as will others.
The political engines, never dormant, are revving up again and favor the younger.
Meanwhile, in the Democratic party, all would be challengers wait for word from Biden. Will he or won’t he, run for president again? He will be 82 in 2024.
Biden has done a good job, but it’s time to cede the space and not hinder the new aspirants.
The longer he delays his decision, the greater advantage to the opposition.
Democratic would be challengers need time to get themselves organized, fine tune their message and smooth out the inevitable kinks.
Republicans aspirants have it easier for the upcoming election.
Trump has so damaged the party that whoever looks half way decent is a viable contender.
Lamentably, so far, many seem unwilling to criticize him openly and harshly.
Trump will lose in the primaries anyway, but if he miraculously does not, then he will be trounced in the general election. And, of course, he will go on to claim that the election was fraudulent.
Ideally, what Biden should do is decline to run again as soon as possible – like next week – and then commit to prepping all the Democratic newcomers. Not just Kamala Harris.
Biden would be making a great contribution to the nation if he made a point of periodically gathering all would be Democratic challengers and schooling them on how he’s conducted his presidency on both national and foreign affairs.
Mr Biden has much to teach, and doing so would strengthen the positions of democratic candidates as they fight off the opposition and themselves.
Because Mr Biden’s performance has covered so many aspects, such mentoring assistance would help build formidable candidates.
I don’t recall any sitting president ever doing that unless it was done in private.
This upcoming election is for Democrats to win handily, provided they’re disciplined enough.
The likelihood is that inflation will be under control well before election day. So, too, will Covid, while our investments in infrastructure and climate change will be moving along.
Biden should not be looking at the 2024 election as a contest he should win but as one the Democratic party should win.
Even if Biden is not challenged from within the party, the contest against the Republican nominee will be exhausting, which will take time away from major concerns, chief among them the war in Ukraine.
As we stand, there remain within Europe bitter differences as to whether to fully support Ukraine.
There have been delays in supplying armaments essential to hold back Russia and one day boot them out of Ukraine entirely. This has given Russia additional advantages.
So focused attention on the war is essential, as well as explaining its importance to the American people.
Ukraine’s heroic defense of their land is a major contributor to the political stability of the world.
Russia continues its attempt to destabilize neighboring countries, as recent evidence suggests has happened in nearby Moldova, whose government is pro-western.
It is conceivable that the war will come to an end during Biden’s term if he were to stay on task and is not distracted by running for a second term.
And winning the war would make for a great gift to all of us.

DeSantis and Disney

The Florida governor is riding high.
‘So there’s a new Sheriff in town and that’s the way it’s going to be,’ he said the other day.
He’s taken on Disney and their ‘Reedy Creek Improvement District’, a legal authority granted to the entertainment company in the 1960s so they could set up a futuristic city in the Orlando area - Epcot - which never materialized and the project became instead another theme park.
Disney World packs a lot of punch and the special district status may grant financial advantages that lessen competition.
On those grounds alone those privileges could be challenged, but DeSantis’ tiff with the organization is about hitting back because Disney came out against a Florida law passed in March 2022, the ‘Parental Rights in Education Act’, which barred ‘classroom instruction … on sexual orientation or gender identity’ from kindergarten through the 3rd grade, while prohibiting also such instruction at any grade level if done ‘in a manner that is not age or developmentally appropriate for students in accordance with state standards.’
The LGBTQ+ community, which is fighting against prejudice and for societal inclusion nationwide, justifiably saw it as a violation of free speech and have been critical of the law.
They are right.
Sexual orientation is largely established before we start primary school. Discussion of the differences others show allows for the development of tolerance and respect and so prevents prejudice with all its lasting damage.
The strong pushing for the passing of the law tells me such parents are not trusting themselves or their children.
But this is a pyrrhic victory for DeSantis. It exposes his own prejudices and it will carry through into the presidential race. We’ll see more as the campaign unfolds.
Disney was right in opposing passage of the law. They had to answer to their workers who have a broader perspective than the Florida governor and made their case clear.
Meanwhile, Disney will have to contend with their restricted governing powers. The district they had controlled will now be renamed ‘The Central Florida Tourism Oversight District’ which will be subject to more state control and its board members will be appointed by DeSantis instead of the company.
Perhaps there will be more competition, but judging by Disney’s success, whoever has been part of that enterprise was doing a good job.
There are still options for Disney. If profoundly dissatisfied, they can pull out and move to an adjoining state where they could get a better deal. I’m sure it’s crossed the minds of their executives.
I don’t see Florida as the showcase state it is being made out to be.
Their demographics are skewed by an excess of retirees. Like Texas, it doesn’t have state taxes. But are those signs of being an outstanding state? No.
And regarding Covid: the battle against the virus was won by scientists, not by politicians.
So ride on, Sheriff DeSantis. You might be looking at a long stay in that saddle. Which will give you time to gallop on down to Mar-A-Lago and discuss with Trump all that could have been if either of you had been more inclusive as leaders.

Mr Biden. To Run or Not Run Again.

Tough decision.
Here’s my take on it.
You’ve done a very good job as President. At a time of much national doubt you stepped in and took control.
Your performance in leading the West to stop Russia from running over Ukraine and annexing it has been admirable. To me it is the shining achievement of your term.
The energies that you have awakened will be critical in the contest with China. A contest the entire world is watching as other nations look for direction.
There was a general malaise in our country in the wake of the Trump years and you have stepped in with aplomb and dignity. And so the democratic party had a solid performance in the recent midterms.
You have taken decisive steps to boost our technology sector – to expand our chip manufacturing capacity – and committed to climate change and infrastructure rebuilding.
We have moved past Covid and your choices were sound.
Even in Afghanistan, which stirred much condemnation due to the haste of the pull out, I believe you were right in your choice.
Putin did not invade Ukraine because of your getting us out of Afghanistan, he invaded Ukraine because he thought Trump’s isolationist bent had lasting roots in our nation and that such sentiments would neutralize efforts to go to Ukraine’s assistance.
You still have all this year and all the next one to press on with your work.
But this should be it for you. You’re now 80 and will be 82 where you to be reelected.
Confronted with a much younger Republican adversary, the disparity in age will be glaring.
The Republican party deserves no such advantage.
There is much you must do in the next 2 years. And a key task is that of bringing the war to an end. The world is aching for such an outcome.
For you to be running again would take away energies from that work. You would be needlessly distracted with electoral stuff.
As we stand, with your sterling performance, the Democratic party has the edge.
Moderate Republicans will find it hard to forget that Trump has been associated with the assault on Capitol Hill on January 6th, to the astonishment of most Americans.
Moderate Republicans will find it hard to forget that Trump still has a good deal of influence over Senators and Representatives.
In consequence, I do not think that Trump will end up being his party’s choice. His time is past.
But it will take longer for that party to recover from its malaise.
So this is the time for you to pass the baton. The time for you to announce that you will not run again and let the contestants to succeed enter the race and fight for funds and supporters.
Your example will remain a potent stimulus, a legacy distinguished and honorable, shining its light on the presidential contest and favoring the democrats.
There are many candidates who will step in to follow in your footsteps and who will be inspired by your performance.
And while this next presidential term is for democrats to lose, the contestants should get into the race as quickly as possible.
So you must clear the way as soon as possible.
A word about Vice president Harris.
I sense that you would like to be the one who made possible that our nation has their first woman president and that she be an African American.
But that honor cannot be inherited. It must be fought for.
It is very hard to shine while working in the shadow of the president, so I’m sure we have yet to see VP Harris’ capabilities on display.
I am sure as VP she has learned a great deal from you so let us see it.
Let her enter the fray and have at it with other contestants.
The time is now.
Best of luck.

Two Violent Videos

On the night of 1/7/23, Tyre Nichols, 29, a FedEx employee, was stopped by the police in Hickory Hill, a mostly Black neighborhood in Memphis, Tennessee, the reported motive being reckless driving.
Mr Nichols was brutally beaten and died three days later at a hospital.
Yesterday, the authorities released the video they put together, a composite from body cameras worn by officers and from another camera affixed to a nearby light pole.
From the very start, the officer going up to Mr Nichols to pull him out of his vehicle shows a disregard for decency, his manner being overly aggressive.
Mr Nichols is pushed to the ground and the beating starts.
I heard Mr Nichols’ voice pleading, ‘I’ve done nothing wrong,’ to which there was no verbal reply from the officers – five in total – just more beatings instead.
I tried to imagine myself in the victim’s place and thought I would’ve lain very still in the hope the beatings stopped. But it wasn’t me getting punched repeatedly. It wasn’t me in despair and fearing I’d be killed.
Then Mr Nichols gets up and starts running off. The officers jump in their patrol cars and catch him a distance away. Then the beating intensifies.
I thought he shouldn’t have run but stayed put.
But it wasn’t me getting punched again and again.
I wanted to scream STOP! PLEASE! TALK TO THE MAN! LISTEN!
Turns out Mr Nichols had been running in the direction of his mother’s home who lives nearby. He wanted her help. At one point, as he lay on the ground, he calls out to her, ‘Mom?’.
But that didn’t end the punching.
What were they doing? Who were they hitting? Whose approval were they looking for?
The senselessness of their brutality made me wonder, what demons possessed the officers that they needed to punch out the life of a defenseless man, a fellow Black man. Guilty of what?
Running a light? Reckless driving?
No thought was given to how disproportionate their response was.
It was more important to beat the life out of a man that let him run away. There was no thought given to the effects of the harm they were doing. Were they angry at themselves? Who were they trying to impress?
And the beatings went on.
And then, at the end, as Mr Nichols lay still on the ground, his head propped up against the wheel of the patrol car, one of the officers steps front, facing a camera. He seemed satisfied with himself. As if saying, ‘we’ve done our job, we did what he had to do. We got him.’
The officer didn’t know yet that the 5 of them had succeeded in killing Mr Nichols.
Over what? I don’t think he even knew by then. But Mr Nichols died 3 days later.
The 5 officers have been dismissed from their jobs and charged with 2nd degree murder.
But what about their superiors, what are they being charged with?
Because the higher ups failed these officers. These are not just bad apples that we can just toss out. These men’s behavior are expression of a culture of abuse and disregard for human life, even of self hatred, because you don’t go on hitting and hitting another human being if you give a damn about yourself.
If the officers were out on patrol then their superiors who allowed it didn’t bother to check if they were fit to be responsible police officers or just didn’t care.
So the higher ups need to resign too, and charged accordingly.
What’s happened to the spirit of George Floyd, is he now just a memory?
Wasn’t his story going to reverberate through every police department in the nation to not let an absurdity like this senseless killing happen again?
Sadly, the deaths keep mounting.
Would adding members of the community to police patrols make a difference? Lay people who would act as a conscience for the officers? Who knows. But we have to try something.
We’re bleeding here. And not just in Memphis.
Mr Nichols’ mother has called for the community to not protest her son’s killing with violence, for that was not what her son stood for. Thank you for those word, dear lady. And my sympathy to you in your grief.

Yesterday, another violent video was released by the courts. On October 28th 2022, Paul Pelosi, Nancy Pelosi’s husband, was assaulted in his home in San Francisco by a man who had broken into it in the middle of the night. Mr Pelosi, in his 80s, is heard calling for help in a 911 call and then, as the police arrives, trying to keep the intruder from hitting him with a hammer.
The video captures the scene when the intruder launches into his attack of Mr Pelosi who suffered a skull fracture and serious injuries to his right arm as a result.
The intruder in now in custody.
The man had forced his way into the residence looking for Nancy Pelosi, then speaker of the House of Representatives and a leading democrat, but she was not there.
The attack on Mr Pelosi could’ve been deadly.
Immediately after the assault was made public, leading politicians from the Right and Left, including Mitch McConnell, Minority leader in the Senate, denounced it.
Mr Trump was interviewed a day or two afterwards but could not find the moral strength to add his voice to the outrage.
Instead, as I remember, he said the assailant was likely invited into the home by Mr Pelosi.
Since then, Mr Trump has announced his intention to run for president a third time.
To date, in spite his behavior, including the inciting of the Capitol Hill riot on January 6th 2021, he still commands allegiance from both Senators and Representatives in the Republican party.

Something is wrong.

Power Seduces…

Because we’re not doing our homework.
Not coming into our own powers.
It’s something all of us must do. A task all human beings are confronted with.
Each one of us has to think hard on it and choose how to get there.
To not come into our powers or not be on the road to do so is to flunk out of life.
Coming into our powers also requires taking time to form political opinions about the world we live in and who is ruling us.
When Putin ordered the conscription of hundreds of thousands of his citizens to go and kill Ukrainians he was counting on people who, for one reason or another, had put off doing the homework of coming into their powers.
Tens of thousands, maybe more, saw the conscription order coming and fled. They did so quickly because they knew that the invasion of Ukraine was Putin’s war, not Russia’s war.
They acted promptly because they were accustomed to thinking, and to a Russian who does so, the war on Ukraine doesn’t add up.
Ukraine had been fighting Russian sympathizers in the East – the Donbas area – since 2014, but they were fighting in their own land, to reclaim their stolen territory. Ukraine was not a threat to Russia itself.
But Putin needed a war. He needed a war to soothe his aching ego, aching because he had failed to lead his country to a position of world leadership, in spite of having ample natural resources and human capital.
Frustrated with his lack of capacity to lead as a statesman, he decides that occupying a neighbor nation will grant him world standing. No need to discuss it with his people. On his own, he decides what the fate of hundreds of thousands of his citizens should be.
Prior to the war there was no open discussion of what problems Ukraine may have posed.
When you’re a dictator you skip the consultation and discussion part. You just do what you feel like doing. Russian lives were and are at his disposal.
And so an officer assigned to do the enlisting knocks on the door of the home of a potential recruit.
‘Where’s Ilya?’
The potential recruit’s mother answers. ‘He’s at work, learning to be a carpenter. Why do you ask?’
‘His country needs him.’
‘I had heard you might be coming… and Ilya and I discussed it. He’s only 21 and loves building things… creating things. Look, on the shelf behind me, those figurines… I love the ballet dancer, it’s a copy of a famous sculpture by Degas, the French sculptor, which he saw in a museum in St Petersburg. I took him there. He never forgot it. He carved it out of wood. Isn’t it beautiful? He’s so young. He’s just coming into his powers, but he’s not interested in politics. Not yet.’
‘His country needs him.’
‘Russia needs carpenters, too.’
‘Madam… I’m just following orders. Ukrainians don’t want to surrender so we need to force them.’
‘Putin says that, I know. But what did they do to us?’
‘Madam, I don’t have all day, I have other people to see and recruit.’
‘I think there should be courses on political education starting in grammar school… so children learn early on how to choose a political leader. Do you have children?’
‘I do.’
‘How old are they?’ asks Ilya’s mom.
‘He’s nineteen.’
‘Will he be enlisting, too?’
‘No, madam. He’s enrolled at university.’
‘Does that make him better than my son? Russia needs carpenters, too.’
‘Look, madam, I don’t have time to argue with you, Putin says Russia needs Ilya to go into Ukraine. I’m going to leave you the address where he must go. If he doesn’t show up he’ll be in violation of the law.’
‘Every country needs political education early on… so we choose better leaders.’
‘Madam, I’m just following orders. Tell Ilya Russia needs him now. And to show up tomorrow to the recruitment center. Do not disobey this order.’
Ilya’s mother nods distractedly.
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes. You need to tell him, understood?’
She nods again.
‘Will he be there?’
‘It’s up to him.’
‘If he doesn’t show up he’ll be in violation of the law and will be imprisoned.’
‘Better to be imprisoned than being shot at.’
‘This is an order from Putin. Ilya must comply.’
She looks off as she nods.
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes. Have a good day.’
He leaves and she closes the door.
She stands there for a moment, then says, ‘I never thought I’d ask my son to leave Russia.’

In America, to consent to be ruled by a man like Trump is to not have exercised our powers to think. To consent to his rule is to have been intimidated by a blow hard and his accomplices.

In America’s state of Georgia’s election for the Senate, taking place today, Raphael Warnock will beat Herschel Walker, former football player and Trump avatar. (This one is easy)